Wigan Warriors' Cade Cust makes his Ashes prediction as the series between England and Australia approaches

The 24-year-old, who played cricket as a youngster, is looking forward to this summer’s series, which gets underway at Edgbaston.

Cust is hoping he’ll be able to watch some of the action live.

“I’ve been looking at the dates,” he said.

“If there’s a day five I might duck down to Edgbaston and watch that.

“I think it’ll be 3-1 to the Australians in this series.

“There’ll be a fair few of the lads here who will get stuck into me if we go a couple down, so I’m hoping we get off to a flying start.

“(Steve) Smith will be unreal, he’ll average 100 plus. If I was a betting man he’d be the one I’d put my money on.”

In an interview with Wigan Today back in March, Cust discussed his love of cricket and explained how the Wigan players had started playing on the indoor running track.

“It’s quite light-hearted,” he stated.

“You’ve got to enjoy yourself as much as possible.

“We do cricket on the track before training for a laugh just to see who can bat and bowl.

“It’s just one of those things to take your mind off things, but when it’s time to go on field everyone switches on and the hard work starts.

“I’m a bit of a Steve Smith; no, no.

“Bevan (French) bowls quite a fast ball and Jai (Field) can bat as well.

“Junior (Nsemba) bowls some rainbows so I probably wouldn’t want to be on the other end of that.”