English cricket in financial hole

English cricket is braced for losses of up to £380m if no matches are played this summer due to the coronavirus pandemic, Tom Harrison, CEO of The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) says.

The cricket season was due to begin on April 2, but no matches will be played until the start of July at the earliest.

“We anticipate the cost of no cricket this year could be as bad as £380m. That is the worstcase scenario for us,” Harrison told the UK government’s digital, culture, media and sport committee about the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

“That would be the loss of 800 days of cricket across all of our professional clubs and the ECB. It is the most significant financial challenge we have ever faced.”

The sport’s new competition, The Hundred, which Harrison described as a “profit centre” for cricket that had been expected to add £11m of revenue to the game in its first year, has been postponed until 2021.

A three-match Test Series with the West Indies originally scheduled for June has been postponed until later in the summer. England are due to play a series of T20 and one-day internationals against Australia in July and a Test series against Pakistan in July and August.

Harrison was still hopeful some Test matches would take place without spectators, which would still incur a loss of about £100m. But he said such matches are subject to serious logistical difficulties while the coronavirus continues to be a global threat.

“The complexities of lockdown in those nations means there’s a huge amount of complexity to bring teams over, follow government guidelines and get players ready,” he said.

“But with a following wind, hopefully we will be able to play a significant number of Test matches this summer which will help us mitigate those financial losses that we are facing at the moment.” /