The MCC said it would keep the Eton v Harrow match under «regular review» in response to the ICEC report. Photo: AFP/Glyn Kirk
Marylebone Cricket Club is resisting pressure to move historic matches between Eton and Harrow and Oxford and Cambridge from next Lord's season, but admitted the issue «will be under regular review.»
This comes after the Independent Cricket Equality Commission (ICEC) published its 317-page report in June, which included 4,200 responses detailing racism, sexism, classism and elitism in the game.
The England and Wales cricket tournament is on Monday. The board announced a game-wide response that it said would cost «tens of millions of pounds» each year, and the MCC and counties announced specific actions they would take to make the game more inclusive.
< p>One of the 44 recommendations in the ICEC report was that MCC should move its «historic sites» between Eton and Harrow schools (which date back to 1805) and the universities of Oxford and Cambridge from the home of cricket by the end of 2023. It added that «these two events should be replaced by the National Finals of the State Schools U15 Boys' and Girls' Competitions and the National Finals of the Men's and Women's Varsity Teams.»
The recommendation comes just three months after the MCC backtracked on a decision to postpone matches that had divided its members. It guaranteed matches would be played at Lord's until 2028, with a review to be carried out a year earlier. This decision remains unchanged as recommended by the report.
In a letter to members, MCC Chairman Bruce Carnegie-Brown said: “In light of the ICEC report, this is an issue we need to continue to review regularly. While this approach may not be consistent with specific ICEC recommendations, we believe that with all the initiatives that MCC supports, both at Lord's and across the country, we strike a reasonable balance between respecting the views of members, the history of the Club, and our commitment to enabling more cricketers to play at Lord's.»
The ECB's response included a number of radical measures, such as the introduction of a new independent game regulator.
44 recommendations The report calls for the ECB to take action on 137 issues, with Chief Executive Richard Gould saying 94 percent of these actions are moving in a «positive direction.»
In some cases, the ECB has already made its response public, for example by investing an extra £2 million in five charity partners and increasing women's international match fees to the same level as their counterparts. However, they cannot meet the report's full gender parity recommendation, which called for equal average wages at international level by 2028, equal wages for the Hundred by 2025 and equal average wages and prize money in other domestic cricket by 2029. Gould said this was due to commercial imperatives.
“That’s what we’d like to achieve,” he said. “We know we need to accelerate the growth of the commercial element of the women's game, ticket sales and broadcast costs.
“We want to be open and honest that this is not something we can necessarily do. within this time frame, but we will succeed.”
However, the ECB said it would invest «a minimum of £25 million per year above women's earnings projections to further develop the women's and girls' game at all levels during the current broadcast cycle (which runs until 2028).» Gould stated that «women's team sports have been underfunded for decades.» Gould said the women's game currently has «determinable revenue» of around £11 million and that the ECB is investing £31 million in the professional women's game and additional funds in entertainment gaming.
Gould acknowledged that to fund the response to ICEC, the ECB will have to “redefine priorities” and “rebalance the business.”
“We will find the money by changing priorities,” he said. “We have a network that we need to support, including county councils and county cricket clubs. We are committed to ensuring the level of investment we make in the network. This is where most of the work is done. We will look at centralizing spending, increasing our revenues and rebalancing the business.
“Some of these items are expensive. But a lot of it is also culture and trying to build a better, more inclusive culture. We don't look at it as a cost, we look at it as an investment. These are exactly the things we should be spending money on to ensure we have the most inclusive team sport in the country. This is exactly what we should be doing with our money.
“It will be tens of millions of pounds over the next couple of years and much more.”
“It attracts new players, volunteers, workforce and makes our sport much richer. We take this responsibility very seriously.»
Gould, however, reiterated that the game will be able to afford the investment it is making.
“We always need and want more money,” he said. “It would be wrong to dramatize the situation and think that we will spend so much money that the sport will become insolvent. We are far from these levels. It's all about making good, sound investments and finding a good direction to move forward. We will be reasonable, but I have every confidence that we can make the progress that everyone involved in the game wants to see.”
Amid the Yorkshire racism scandal, the ECB came under criticism because it was both the promoter of the game and a regulator which he has attempted to soften by introducing the Cricket Regulatory Authority, which he promises will be “walled off” from the governing body. Gould said the ECB would appoint a chairman of the Board of Cricket Regulation, who would then «get to work» by appointing his own staff and having his own budget. He described the board as «effectively like the CPS [Crown Prosecution Service] for cricket» in that «they investigate and decide whether further action should be taken and whether people should be charged by the judicial [unit].»
Other elements of the ECB's response include developing a State Schools Action Plan (Gould described access to cricket in state schools as a «real challenge») and working with districts to prevent funding becoming a barrier to entry to participation.
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