Cricket Australia is to announce it has signed a deal with BT Sport as its overseas broadcast partner giving Sky’s major rivals their first foothold in cricket.

The shake-up of Australian cricket has continued apace after the country’s cricketing board handed the rights to games down under, including the next Ashes series, to BT Sport.

“When we launched BT Sport we promised to make televised football far more accessible and affordable than it has been to date”, read a statement from John Petter, chief executive of BT Consumer, at the time of Linekar’s unveiling.

Sky, having to be more pragmatic with their rights-buying since investing so much in the Premier League, will point to a lot of the Ashes action in Australia taking place overnight.

BT Sport will also show the women’s Ashes and the women’s T20 Big Bash League.

Cricket fans will see England defend the Ashes they won this summer when they travel down under in 2017/18, as part of 210 days of worldwide Australian cricket to be shown on BT Sport.

“BT Sport put forward a highly compelling bid for the rights to broadcast cricket from Australia to audiences throughout the United Kingdom”.

The Ashes adds to BT’s growing sports portfolio which now includes all Champions League fixtures, as well as a portion of the Premier League fixtures, which will increase from 2016-17 to included 42 matches, compared to Sky Sports’ 126.

“We would like to thank Sky Sports for its commitment to Australian cricket over several decades where it produced an informative, innovative and entertaining broadcast of the game that was truly world-class”.