Harrison says coronavirus could cost ECB as much as £380m

Tom Harrison has warned that coronavirus could cost the England and Wales Cricket Board £380million in a worst-case scenario.

ECB chief executive Harrison outlined the potential financial impact of the virus during evidence to the Digital, Culture,MediaandSportcommittee. This year's inaugural edition of The Hundred has alreadybeenpostponed,thereis no professional cricket before

JulyandthescheduledTestseriesagainstWestIndiesandPakistan are in doubt.

"Wearestillworkingoutthe impact of Covid-19," Harrison said. "We anticipate with no cricket this year a worst-case scenario could be as bad as £380million.

"That would be the loss of 800daysofcricketacrossallof our professional clubs and the ECB.Thatistheworst-casescenario for us this year."

Englandwereduetotakeon West Indies in June and Pakistan later in the summer and the ECB has not given up hope of those Test series going ahead. Harrison accepts there are challenges to overcome, including teams arriving from other countries, preparation of pitches and the logistics of playing behind closed doors, but thinks a "significant" number of Tests could be played.

"With a following wind hopefullywewillbeabletoplay a significant number of Test matches this summer which would help us mitigate those financiallossesthatwearefacing at the moment."

The postponement of new competition The Hundred is a big blow for the ECB, given they were due to make £11million profit from it after selling 170,000 tickets for the men's and women's tournaments.

But Harrison still expects

The Hundred to be a success when it is launched next year.

"Intermsofthepositionwe put ourselves in for The Hundred,rightatthemomentCovid-19 struck, we were in a very, very strong place," he said.

"The game had never sold that number of tickets at that speed before, with the exception of the Cricket World Cup.

"So we were in a very strong position to achieve exactly what we set out to achieve in terms of growing the audience for cricket in this country.

"Theprofileofticketbuyers was extremely encouraging. Youngadultsandparentscoming with their children. Doing exactly the job we wanted it to do. There was a huge amount ofmomentumbuildingaround The Hundred which we will carry into next year when we will renew our ambition to continue to grow the game in a post-covid scenario."