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 ...