Essex County Cricket Club have admitted that they would like to move from their current Chelmsford headquarters - to boost their hopes of staging top England games.

Although the county have no firm plans to switch at present, they do have a potential buyer.

Chelmsford would not be large enough to host international games and general manager Peter Edwards admits: "We've been told that there will be a large number of one-day internationals coming up in the next 10 years and plans are to take many of these away from the traditional Test grounds.

"It would be tremendous if Essex were in a position to be staging games of this sort but I have to stress that we have no definite moving plans at the moment."

Countryside Properties, owners of the adjacent Chelmsford City Football Club, would love to become owners of the cricket site in New Writtle Street.

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