My last post looked at the 2022 accounts of the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) and concluded the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) was giving the MCC too good a deal for staging international fixtures. This post looks at what a reasonable deal might be, how easy it would be to get to better place and why it seems so unlikely that the ECB will achieve a fair deal.
There's a school of thought: the best thing to do with the MCC and Lord's would be to scrap them. But I'm not sure this would be desirable or practicable. Not because of the tradition of Lord's as the "home of cricket" which is just guff, (it isn't the home of cricket - it's the home of the MCC) but because there is demonstrable demand for two test matches to be played in London. To side line Lord's and build a new cricket stadium in London, or somewhere close to London doesn't seem feasible. The ECB could always restrict London international matches to the Oval but it's probably better if it can retain two London hosting grounds.
So what needs to change? The previous post calculated that MCC made a net profit of £15m from staging international matches but only pays £6m to the ECB as staging fees (i.e. the MCC made a £21m profit before staging fees.). Rather than the MCC taking 70% of the total profit the deal between the ECB and MCC should be recalibrated. If, say, an additional £5m was paid as staging fees, or better still, to the MCC's in - house charity the MCC and ECB would (roughly) split the total profit from international cricket and the MCC would still make an 11% or so pre - tax return on its ground investment.
In addition to changing the financial terms of the deal the MCC needs to agree to cut out their performative nonsense which perpetrates a negative image of cricket. The most recent (but far from only example of this) was MCC members blocking proposals to stop playing Eton vs Harrow and Oxford vs Cambridge annual matches at Lord's. Although the proposal for change came from the MCC board it was quickly abandoned when a group of backwoodsmen objected. The MCC didn't even force a vote on the proposals, instead the board backed down and announced that the Harrow v Eton & Oxford v Cambridge games would be played for at least the next five years. MCC chief executive Guy Lavender said: ""It had become a divisive issue. We will take stock of our membership in four years' time and see that the world looks like then." The MCC clearly values the views of what is quite probably a minority of its members to be more important than the spirit of cricket. And they also don't know the difference between capitulation and compromise.
It's pretty clear that the MCC needs to be brought into line and it's equally clear that the ECB can do this. Staging fees from the MCC accounted for £6m of the ECB's £330m income in 2023, but international fixtures are the life blood of the MCC. The MCC needs the ECB, THE ECB, quite likes two London grounds but it doesn't need Lord's.
I'm not the only or the first person to reach this conclusion. On the 26th June 2023 the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket released its report "Holding Up a Mirror to Cricket". Recommendations 18 & 19 to the report read:
"We recommend to MCC that the annual fixtures between Eton and Harrow and between Oxford and Cambridge are no longer played at Lord’s after 2023. These two events should be replaced by national finals’ days for state school U15 competitions for boys and girls (see Recommendation 38) and a national finals’ day for competitions for men’s and women’s university teams."
And:
"We recommend that the ECB revises and clarifies its processes and criteria for allocating, suspending, cancelling and reinstating high profile matches to place greater emphasis on EDI. There is clear evidence that being allocated such matches, or having the right to host them withdrawn, is a powerful tool to encourage compliance with EDI. The current process for match allocation (via a tender process against six criteria) expires in 2024 and we have not identified any formal process for deciding to suspend or cancel matches. The revisions should: a) Ensure greater emphasis on EDI in the criteria for allocation, giving EDI criteria equal status to the most important of the other criteria. b) Consider making a bidder’s performance on EDI a ‘gateway criterion’ requiring hosts to meet stretching minimum EDI standards in order to be able to bid for a high profile match. c) Introduce a clear and transparent decision-making process for suspension, cancellation and reinstatement of high profile matches. d) The Cricket Discipline Commission (or any future adjudication body if it is replaced and/or renamed) should have the power to suspend or cancel the right to host high profile matches for regulatory breaches, in particular related to EDI."
It's no coincidence the recommendation for EDI (Equality, diversity and inclusion) to be considered in allocating international fixtures follows the recommendation that the Eton v Harrow and Oxford v Cambridge fixtures be moved from Lord's. The message is clear: The MCC needs to make a choice, it can act like a private members club if it wants and stage whatever fixtures it wants but it will have to face the repercussions in the public decisions over which grounds stage international fixtures.
But just 12 days before the ICEC Report was issued the ECB announced the next allotment of international fixtures. Typically such allotments are for a four year cycle but the June 2023 announcement covered a seven year period from 2025 - 2031. Over this period MCC / Lord's gets the cream of the crop, two Ashes tests, two India Tests and two Tests every season compared with one for every other Test match ground.
The ECB has, effectively pre-empted recommendations 18 & 19 of the ICEC report. This may or may not have been deliberate but surely an announcement a crucial as the allocation of international fixtures could have been left until after the report was published?
The question is why does the ECB give the MCC such an easy ride, potentially including deliberately undermining the ICEC report that the ECB commissioned?
It's speculation but I think the role of Claire Connor at both ECB and MCC gives us a pretty good idea of what is going on. Connor has had a range of roles at the ECB over the last 16 years; Managing Director England Women, Acting Chief Executive and now Deputy Chief Executive and Managing Director England Women. She is also a member (since 2009) of the MCC and became the club's first female president in October 2021. So for a portion of 2022 Connor was both acting Chief Executive of the ECB and President of the MCC. The ECB under Colin Graves and Tom Harrison had banned these conflicts on interest, forcing directors of first class counties off the ECB board, but it seems an exception was made for Connor and the MCC. In many ways Connor is a trailblazer, the first woman ECB chief executive and the first woman MCC president. But she is also a very old school English cricket administrator, like Pelham Warner and Andrew Strauss ranging across a variety of roles seemingly indifferent to conflicts of interest. It would interesting to know if other ECB Key Management Personnel and Directors were also MCC members.
And its not as if the MCC and ECB just share people, the ECB evolved from out of the MCC's Advisory County Cricket Committee which ran (sort of) first class cricket in England up until 1968. To this day the ECB is based at Lord's and is a tenant of the MCC.
And so this is where we end up. I'm sure most people at the ECB would like to see Harrow vs Eton and Oxford vs Cambridge moved from Lord's. I'd guess there are a significant number of MCC members who would be happy to see the games moved and I'm certain a majority of members would go along with moving the games it if the consequence of retaining the Eton vs Harrow game was Lord's losing a couple of Ashes Test matches. But ties of; class, exemplified by Claire Connor's dual role, common history and common usage of the Lord's ground mean the ECB takes a softly softly attitude with the gin soaked MCC ultras. Prominent figures at the MCC are too fond of the benefits of membership to walk away and the whole thing is a nonsense.
As with many of my posts on thus blog there is a legitimate question as to whether this really matters. Well, given the country is run by a bunch of near criminals, along with actual criminals hiding in plain daylight and assorted enablers it would be an exaggeration to say playing Eton vs Harrow at Lord's stinks. It doesn't really stink, not as much as many other things, but it does matter, a bit. Cricket is a part of England and contributes, a bit, to the country as a whole. Maybe it doesn't stink, but it does whiff.
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