England's county teams have been forced to look elsewhere for overseas players because of Australia's upcoming Ashes tour which has left in doubt the availability of key players for the domestic season.

The season opens on Friday with a meeting between county champion Warwickshire and a team from the Marylebone Cricket Club. The first full round of four-day county championship matches starts on Wednesday.

It will be one of a handful of chances fans get to see England regulars playing for their counties before they join up with the national team in mid-May.

Twelve players are contracted to the national team but the 18 counties can't predict which others will be asked to join them. Several Australians also play for the English counties and all these selections may well throw their championship plans into disarray.

Lancashire already has encountered the problem. It signed Victoria's Brad Hodge in October as one of its permitted two overseas players, only for Australia to pick him for the tour of England.

With the first tour match June 11 and the final Ashes test ending on September 12, Lancashire is likely to look for a replacement.

"Obviously it gives us a problem," Lancashire coach Mike Watkinson said. "Brad will be unavailable for part of the season. We'll be in touch with him shortly to see exactly what his availability is during the summer."

Yorkshire attempted to avoid the problem by not hiring its first choice.

It didn't offer South Australia skipper Darren Lehmann a new contract, even though he averaged 66.97 runs a match over four seasons for the county, in case he was chosen for national team duty.

However, Australia didn't select him, and by the time it announced the Ashes squad on Monday, the Tykes had filled its two overseas berths and could discover the big-hitting Aussie playing against them.

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