Sri Lankan spin king Muttiah Muralitharan will tour Australian this summer after concerns he might not join the squad so as to avoid any bowling controversies.
Sri Lanka will play in the triangular one-day series against Australia and England.
Muralitharan’s previous tours to Australia in 1995-96 and 1998-99 were highlighted by controversy after he was called for chucking by Australian umpires. Doubts over the legality of his action were again raised by Australian vice-captain Adam Gilchrist earlier this year.
But the bowler himself has had no problems with umpires since his last Australian tour and has been cleared on several occasions by the International Cricket Council.
Former Australian international and county stalwart Stuart Law believes England have an improved squad for the Ashes, but still have some way to go to match Australia.
"I've got no predictions about who will win the series, but they're definitely starting to get a quality, class outfit together," said Law of the England team.
England dominated Sri Lanka and to a lesser extent India at home in their summer. The performance of Marcus Trescothick and Michael Vaughan delighted the home fans. Simon Jones and Steve Harmison made promising debuts and Alex Tudor also performed credibly.
"They're hyping it up as the biggest Test series, but they're going to have to lift from what happened during their summer,” said Law.
"They beat Sri Lanka without Murali (Muttiah Muralitharan), and when he did play he didn't appear to be fit.
"They tied India 1-1 at home and if they think that's going to be good enough when they come to Australia, they probably should think again.”
Next year's Cricket World Cup will have the tightest security ever seen at a major sporting event in South Africa.
Dr Ali Bacher, the head of the organising committee, has promised that the safety of players will be a top priority.
No-one will be allowed to run onto the outfield during matches and every spectator will be subjected to an airport style-search for metal objects.
"We want to make sure that the World Cup is a safe and secure event," said Bacher.
"There'll be a closed-circuit television at each ground, monitoring crowd behaviour."
"For the first time in South African sport, every person going into the ground will have to go through a metal detector."
England's selectors are set to announce who will replace Graham Thorpe in the Ashes squad to face Australia.
Surrey colleague Mark Ramprakash is favourite to take Thorpe's place, with the announcement due on Saturday morning.
Thorpe pulled out of the five-Test tour this week after previously convincing selectors he had put problems in his personal life behind him.
