A sponsorship snafu could mean that England A coach Jon Lewis is promoted to the main England role as soon as next week, after it emerged that department store John Lewis had already spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on a new advertising campaign centred around the name of the former head coach Jon Lewis.

Lewis has been flown home from Australia, where England A are currently playing Australia A, for emergency talks as the ECB scramble to save their sponsorship deal with the department store.

The advertising campaign centres around a new line of Bondi-2-Coogee budgie smugglers modelled by the England Men’s cricket team, but hit a snag last week when it emerged that the OG Jon Lewis had been fired from his role following the 16-0 Ashes whitewash.

Clare Connor said: “In England, we pride ourselves on our excellent talent pipeline of coaches with the name Jon Lewis, so we feel confident this is just a temporary hitch.“

“Our synergies with the John Lewis brand couldn’t be stronger – after all, here at the ECB we never knowingly undersell ourselves.”