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Crickets chiefs to unveil their financial rescue plan amid coronavirus postponements
The England and Wales Cricket Board were on Monday preparing to unveil their financial rescue plan for the professional and recreational games, with coronavirus set to rule out much — and possibly all — of the 2020 season at all levels.
The recreational game has been suspended indefinitely, while there will be no professional cricket until June at the earliest. The County Championship season was supposed to begin on April 12, meaning seven rounds of that 14-match competition have been lost.
The international summer is due to begin on May 4, with a Test between England and West Indies at the Kia Oval, but that series seems increasingly certain to be postponed.
The parlous financial state of most of the 18 first-class counties means that the entire summer being ruled out could threaten their existence and the ECB were meeting today to finalise plans for support packages.
It is likely that staff at the governing body are furloughed or take pay cuts, but at this stage pay cuts for centrally contracted England players are not being planned.
Centrally contracted players are paid depending on their involvement in different formats of the game, with the top earners taking home around £1million a year. It is likely that at some stage they will take pay cuts due to the current crisis, but it may need to be voluntary due to the terms of the contracts.
The ECB have reserves of around £11m, a figure that has taken a hit in recent years, which will prop up their support for the grassroots and county games.
The ECB have been modelling different start dates in June, July and August, with a possible extension of the season into October, but will follow Government advice and not get the season underway until it is safe to do so.
Many counties will furlough staff to save money. Surrey are planning to furlough 60 non-playing staff and will top up salaries where necessary.
Meanwhile, England Test captain Joe Root said that the coronavirus lockdown had allowed his side an opportunity to assess where they can improve.
“I’ve been in touch with every single player from across the course of the winter over the last couple of weeks to make sure everyone is okay, is getting their stuff done and to try to get a little bit of feedback as well,” he said.
“We’ve got a bit of time now to get a good assessment of where we are at as a team and look at a few things, and use this as an opportunity to improve things where we might want to and take the team froward.
“There is a lot going around in sport, a lot of uncertainty about when things will start again. But one thing the guys have done really well is try and stay active, stay fit and stay positive.”
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