English cricket landed a staggering windfall of almost £150 million after a Silicon Valley tech consortium won a fierce bidding war to become co-owners of the Lord’s-based Hundred team London Spirit.

The consortium, headed up by Palo Alto CEO Nikesh Arora, saw off competition from Sanjiv Goenka, the owner of Indian Premier League team Lucknow Super Giants, in an auction that valued London Spirit at £295 million. They have agreed to buy a 49 per cent share for upwards of £145 million.

Marylebone Cricket Club, which will partner the consortium, confirmed in a missive to members that “Cricket Investor Holdings Ltd, a consortium led by Nikesh Arora, will be our new partner and co-owners of the London Spirit franchise in The Hundred”.

The consortium is made up of “11 high-net-worth individuals” including Sundar Pichai (Google CEO), Satya Nadella (Microsoft CEO), Shantanu Narayen (Adobe CEO), Egon Durban (Silver Lake CEO), and Satyan Gajwani (co-founder of Major League Cricket and vice-chairman of Times Internet). They came to the table late and were not initially on MCC’s shortlist of six potential investors. However, they timed their run perfectly and had deep enough pockets to win the most-prized franchise.

Bids from Todd Boehly, the Chelsea co-chairman, and Manchester United co-chairman Avram Glazer’s Lancer Capital were quickly blown out of the water by Goenka and the tech consortium. They battled for three hours, with bids placed every few minutes at £3 million increments. Insiders were left staggered at the scale of the bids, double the floor valuation based on the previous round of the sales process, which is being managed by the Raine Group and Deloitte.

“Today’s announcement shows what we as members have always known: our Club is special,” wrote MCC chairman Mark Nicholas. “It’s why people want to be involved with us.

“We are delighted to have found partners who share our values and understand the power and mystique of Lord’s. We look forward to building on the happy relationship we have already established over the past few weeks.”

Rest of the franchises to be sold next week

Later in the day, the fourth Hundred franchise was sold, with Welsh Fire snapped up by Sanjay Govil, the US tech entrepreneur who owns Washington Freedom in Major League Cricket. Govil’s bid valued the franchise at £64 million, and he bought 49 per cent, which will see him work with Glamorgan. Govil outbid Capri Global, an Indian group which owns UP Warriorz in the Women’s Premier League.

That took the running tally of valuations to approximately £564 million for 100 per cent of the four franchises. That means English cricket has raised around £275 million, which will be spread between the recreational game, the 18 counties, and MCC. As it stands, each first-class county stands to take around £12 million, with four franchises still to be sold.

On Thursday, the first day of the auction, 49 per cent stakes in Oval Invincibles and Birmingham Phoenix were sold. The Ambanis, the owners of Mumbai Indians and the richest family in Asia, have partnered with Surrey to co-own Oval Invincibles. With the full franchise valued at £123 million, they paid around £61 million for their 49 per cent stake. Then Knighthead Capital, the owners of Birmingham City, which has Tom Brady involved, bought a 49 per cent stake in the £82 million-valued Phoenix.

The remaining four franchises will be sold next week, starting with Manchester Originals on Monday. Goenka is expected to bid heavily again for that franchise. Northern Superchargers will be sold on Tuesday, then Trent Rockets, with Southern Brave the final franchise to be sold. They are in a unique position in that their host county, Hampshire, are owned by an IPL team. GMR, which owns Hampshire, is the co-owner of Delhi Capitals, and the strong favourite to win the stake in Southern Brave.

While the bids on the second day of the auction exceeded expectations, a word of warning was fired from Lalit Modi, who founded the IPL and has been a vocal critic of the ECB’s sales process (which he called a “Ponzi scheme” last year). He wrote on social media: “Hope the ECB is taking advance payment. As I can assure u [sic] all [the investors] will bail.”