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 ...

This is a post on the Marylebone Cricket Club's (MCC) annual accounts for the year to 31 December 2022 .   The MCC dates back to 1787 and is a curious institution. It is a private members club which owns Lord's cricket ground, is the custodian of the rules of cricket, and self - appointed guardian of the spirit of the game .  The merits of MCC's continued role and influence are sharply contested.  For some the MCC preserves old fashioned virtue in a modern, money mad, game; others look at an MCC membership which is posh, white, male, elderly, conservative and, probably, Conservative and conclude we need to to move on from both the MCC and Lord's central place in cricket's calendar.   In general I'm on the anti side of the MCC argument which is set out in this post on  "Being Outside Cricket"  but I should say: when I wrote a book on cricket the staff in the MCC library were both courteous and helpful.  This post largely lets the pros and cons...

An update to an  analysis of spinners in the county championship .  These figures are taken from the county championship averages as as at 7 July 2023 when teams had played 7 or 8 games.  I set the standard for a front - line spinner as having bowled a hundred overs this season.  There were 12 spinners who met the criteria: Dawson (Hampshire), Watt (Derbyshire), Harmer (Essex), Leech (Somerset), Parkinson (Lancashire & Durham), Patel (Durham), Thompson (Derbyshire), Gohar (Gloucestershire), Hartley (Lancashire), Carson (Sussex), Bess (Yorkshire & Warwickshire) and Ahmed (Leicestershire). Of the 12, 8 have their current contracts with a second division county, with Dawson, Harmer, Leech & Hartley as the only division 1 front line spinners.  Mark Watt who plays for Derbyshire and Scotland and bowls slow left arm is a new name to me.  Of the 12 Liam Dawson has the best average (16.4) & to no - ones surprise Simon Harmer has the most wickets, 36...

The ECB has recently published its accounts for the year to  31 January 2023  and this post is an analysis of the ECB's financial position.  I've done a series of posts on the ECB's accounts, the most recent being  this on the accounts to January 2021. Not everything I've predicted in this blog has come to pass, but I think the analysis of the 2021 position stands up pretty well.  Rather than go back over the same ground this post focuses on the expenses the ECB incurs.  Lets start with a table. This table shows the administrative expenses of the ECB for the period 2013 to 2023.  In those 11 years total expenditure increased from £97m to £249m;  an aggregate increase of 157%.  If the ECB's expenses had increased at the same rate as (CPI) inflation, 2023 expenditure would have been £124m, roughly half on the actual outcome.  In real terms the ECB is spending more money in 2023 than it did in 2013 -  a lot more money. The good news is...

A post about how spinners cope with the early April start to the county championship season. In April 2023 there were 8 spinners who bowled 300 balls in the first four rounds of the county championship.  Most counties played three first class games in those four rounds but a couple played in all four rounds. The eight "front line" spinners were Khunermann (Durham), Harmer (Essex), Carson (Sussex), Bess (Yorkshire), Parkinson (Lancashire / Durham), Leach (Somerset), Ahmed (Leicestershire), and Gohar (Gloucestershire). Khunermann took the most wickets (12) and had the lowest average (22.5).   As a group the 8 spinners took 63 of the 797 wickets to fall in April (8%) and averaged a 37.5 runs a wicket against the average for all wickets in April of 31.9. Perhaps not surprisingly not many counties have a spinner as a front line bowler in April.  Where spinners are used they aren't a disaster but they still average more than other types of bowler.

Lot's of talk recently about the Hundred.  A county investigation revealed the competition showed a £9m loss over its first three years.   And that figure is before including the annual £24m of Hundred payments from the ECB to the first class counties and MCC.  So a cost to the ECB over the first 3 years of The Hundred of £81m.  But what has always interested me is the financial benefits / cost of The Hundred to English cricket as a whole.   To get to this from the ECB cost we need to make two adjustments. Much of the expenditure on The Hundred goes to the counties, either by way of the £1.3m annual payment to each county or the staging and revenue share payments to the 7 counties with grounds that host The Hundred.  The first class counties have their faults, but looking at English cricket as a whole this isn't money going out of the game.   By making the Hundred the premier short form domestic competition the ECB devalued the existing ...

Yorkshire recently released their annual accounts for the year ended 31 December 2022.  This is a review of those accounts which updates  this post on the 2021 financial statements. Summary Yorkshire disclose both a "normal" profit and loss for 2022 and an exceptional loss relating to the continued fall out from the Azeem Rafiq affair.  The table below splits the 2021 and 2022 loss between normal and exceptional profit / loss.   Year     2021 2022       Ordinary activities 1,327,190 (580,703) Exceptional Loss (1,892,071) (1,643,629)       Total Loss (564,881) (2,224,332) The loss for the period is just over £2.2m (rather less than the £3m loss predicted by the  Yorkshire Post ). Exceptional costs related to the Azeem Rafiq case were slightly down in 2022 compared to 2021.  It looks as if payments to settle an unfair dismissal case brought by Andrew Gale and five other employees were in line with the amo...