England captain Joe Root expects talks over a temporary pay cut for the country's top cricketers to take place soon as the sport continues to face up to the impact of a heavily disrupted season.

With the entire campaign postponed until at least May 28 due to the ongoing spread of coronavirus, and the likelihood of considerable additional delays, the game is set to endure enormous financial strain.

Many county cricketers, including Root's Yorkshire team-mates, are expected to be placed on furlough – with the government picking up the tab for 80 per of their wages during the lay-off – but with no England fixtures postponed at present the central contracts of the leading players have yet to become a priority.

Root has also managed to start watching 'The Test' during his downtime, with the Australian cricket documentary starting to whet his appetite for another crack at the Ashes in 2021-22.

"I resisted watching that for a good while but I've started watching the first few now," he said.

"It's been a good motivator to get back and train, get back on the exercise bike. I use it as a way of incentivising myself. A lot of the things we do in Test cricket revolves around planning for the Ashes series down under. We'll really use this time to ready ourselves to do something special down there because we know how challenging it can be to play there."