GROUND CONTROL
LANCS UP PLANS TO HOST BIO-SECURE TESTS
LANCASHIRE are looking at installing temporary accommodation on their car parks and have been in touch with the German Bundesliga for advice as they bid to host behind-closed-doors Test matches this summer.
The Red Rose have expressed an interest with the ECB for up to 18 days of international cricket to be played at Emirates Old Trafford, turning the ground into a bio-safe venue.
It is believed the club are in line to host two Tests against the West Indies starting on July 16 and 24, followed by three ODIs with Ireland on July 30, August 1 and August 3 and a Pakistan Test from August 5.
But there is still plenty of planning to put in place, with the ground having to potentially house around 250 people for at least five nights during a Test match.
To ensure the venue is bio-secure, only ‘key personnel’ will be allowed in the ground for the duration of the match, and they won’t be allowed to leave until the game is over.
That includes not only players, coaches and umpires, but all the staff needed to run a match, including catering staff.
The on-site Hilton Garden Inn has 150 rooms, so the club are looking at temporary accommodation on site for the other 100 or so people needed.
And with the Bundesliga the first major sporting league in Europe to startup again since the pandemic struck, Lancashire have been in touch in a bid to discover best practice of holding games safely.
Despite making a record £5m profit last year, the current pandemic has hit the club hard. But they will get a fee for hosting England games from the ECB, and acting chairman Les Platts also believes it can show the rest of the world that Emirates Old Trafford is open for business.
“We have expressed our interest to the ECB, we are waiting on the ECB for a decision on that. We are continuing to plan on the basis it will happen,” he said.
“We have done extensive planning now for behind-closed-doors cricket and we are hopeful we will get the green light soon and we will have cricket going again in July.
“I haven’t been given a date, I would hope to have heard by this time next week, but we are waiting on the ECB.
“(A fee) is still to be negotiated,” he added. “There will be some income coming to the club, I don’t think the club and game would expect us to be profiteering at these difficult times but there will have to be compensation that is fair to the club.
“There will have to be cost recovery if the hotel is being used, there will be income coming to the club that will help.
“If we get behind closed cricket going, and that means we’ll be using the hotel and The Point in different ways, what that will do is prove that we can operate them safely.
“Therefore, we can start to open them up for normal business come the autumn.
“If we get the hotel working for behind-closed-doors cricket, it proves there is a model for a hotel working in a bio-secure environment that would then able it to start trading in a normal business sense thereafter - maybe quicker than it would elsewhere because we have proved the model works. Therefore people will have more confidence in booking.”
However, Platts, who has stepped up to the role of chairman following the death of David Hodgkiss due to Covid19, has warned that their impressive financial state will merely allow them to see of the perils caused by the current crisis.
“2019 was a brilliant year, it has transformed the finances of the club, you thought it would provide the platform for many years to come, as it is it has provided the platform to survive 2020 when otherwise we might have struggled more,” Platts said.
“It has put us in a position where we are absorbing the costs way better than we would be able to, but the way it is going we still need income to start going again.
“If we don’t get the hotel going again later this year we are going to have to take more measures.
“The club will survive one way or another but if things don’t get going again it is going to be tougher.”