Random Cricket Thread (Domestic Cricket)

[westoelad]

"Yorkshire will still remain solvent regardless of international future"
With debts of £25 million I very much doubt it.

[Alviro Patterson]

"Yorkshire will still remain solvent regardless of international future"
With debts of £25 million I very much doubt it.

Words of the board, not mine.

Most of that debt is owed to the Graves Family Trust and Yorkshire's financial performance has improved significantly. Besides if the new Twenty20 competition goes ahead, all counties are guaranteed £1.3 Million per year over 5 years. That in itself will replace the revenue earned from hosting international cricket, which Yorkshire have played host to inferior test opposition in recent years (i.e. New Zealand twice, Sri Lanka twice in May)

[westoelad]

"Yorkshire will still remain solvent regardless of international future"
With debts of £25 million I very much doubt it.

Words of the board, not mine.

Most of that debt is owed to the Graves Family Trust and Yorkshire's financial performance has improved significantly. Besides if the new Twenty20 competition goes ahead, all counties are guaranteed £1.3 Million per year over 5 years. That in itself will replace the revenue earned from hosting international cricket, which Yorkshire have played host to inferior test opposition in recent years (i.e. New Zealand twice, Sri Lanka twice in May)

But do you have complete faith in a board A.P who have made no inroads into a £25 m debt and yet are prepared to go a further £17m into debt? Furthermore do you trust Graves and Harrison to deliver on that £1.3m "guarantee" when no adequate market research has been done on the popularity of City franchise T20 nor any media rights signed for the venture? Why is there a desire by the Yorkshire board to increase capacity when at present a 14000 sellout can't be attained and the popularity of test cricket is decreasing almost exponentially?

[Alviro Patterson]

"Yorkshire will still remain solvent regardless of international future"
With debts of £25 million I very much doubt it.

Words of the board, not mine.

Most of that debt is owed to the Graves Family Trust and Yorkshire's financial performance has improved significantly. Besides if the new Twenty20 competition goes ahead, all counties are guaranteed £1.3 Million per year over 5 years. That in itself will replace the revenue earned from hosting international cricket, which Yorkshire have played host to inferior test opposition in recent years (i.e. New Zealand twice, Sri Lanka twice in May)

But do you have complete faith in a board A.P who have made no inroads into a £25 m debt and yet are prepared to go a further £17m into debt? Furthermore do you trust Graves and Harrison to deliver on that £1.3m "guarantee" when no adequate market research has been done on the popularity of City franchise T20 nor any media rights signed for the venture? Why is there a desire by the Yorkshire board to increase capacity when at present a 14000 sellout can't be attained and the popularity of test cricket is decreasing almost exponentially?

I do have some amount of confidence with the board, who have reversed year on year losses to a profit in the last two financial years and that is without a marquee test fixture. Domestic crowds at Headingley are on the rise, mainly down to the Natwest T20 Blast and installation of floodlights.

I suspect that the £1.3 Million guarantee will come out of the ECB cash reserves. I vehemently oppose what is being proposed for the new Twenty20 competiiton as it is marginalising County Cricket - a 14 match County Championship, a Royal London One Day Cup becoming a glorified Second Eleven Trophy and the Natwest T20 Blast reverts to a 3 group of 6 format (10 games). However some non-test playing counties are bound to be interested in a £1.3 Million sweetener for doing jack all and the ECB have Yorkshire's number sort to speak.

Increasing the stadium capacity to 20,000 would make Headingley the 5th largest cricket ground in England and more likely to host test matches in peak summer, not in May. Also The Roses T20 fixture is a guaranteed sell out and currently worth £300,000, another fixture where a larger ground can be put into good use.

[westoelad]

I do wish Yorkshire well because I respect their great tradition and admire their successful youth system. I suppose to some extent I'm playing devil's advocate and the Yorkshire board obviously know much more about their own finances than I do. Important to remember,though, that those profits have been made without any repayment on their current loans. Sooner or later those debts, and further loans will have to be met. Durham made a net profit of £900k in £2015 before loan repayments were factored in.
Then a £1million loan was called in , a large debt was incurred on a test largely due to bad scheduling by ECB, market forces change and,suddenly, you can't meet your commitments. Commiting to massive debt is a very high risk strategy.

[Dr Cricket]

Also it seems the rugby league team is not playing ball with Yorkshire.
they already sold season tickets for the stand for next year.
Yorkshire were livid considering that is when the stand was meant to be demolished or building work started.
good article on yesterday members meeting.
http://cricketyorkshire.com/yorkshireccc-agm/

still think it is a risky strategy considering ECB are keen to reduce the Summer international schedule, it is 99% likely in 2020 and beyond England will only play 5 or 6 test a summer, 6-10 odi and 3-4 T20 a season.
a massive drop from the current england summer schedule.
Actually a lot of uncertainty on what games any county will host in the future or what is actually happening in county cricket.
pretty dangerous funding the new stand on the thinking that future international games/possible T20 franchise will pay it considering no guarantees that any of it will work especially considering if test are getting dropped from the calendar, headingly got more competition to host games.

if 2 teams are touring london already get 3 test out of 6, so that only leaves 3 games out of Old trafford, cardiff, headingly, southampton, trent bridge and birmingham, so that only on average 1 test every 2 yrs.
even for the Ashes/india test only 3 slots are available.

[westoelad]

On the issue of test allocation I believe the FTP is for a maximum of 6 tests, 6ODI's and 6 T20's so that's 12 white ball internationals per annum to spread amongst competing counties. Graves was also quoted during the winter that there was an intention/proposal for all test staging grounds to be awarded £1m compensation in seasons when they don't host tests to aid costs in maintaining a test ground. Whether that's a firm intention or Graves being provocative and throwing the proverbial hand grenade into the court and observing the resulting explosion is debatable. One can imagine the reaction from non test staging counties to that proposal.

[Alviro Patterson]

Also it seems the rugby league team is not playing ball with Yorkshire.
they already sold season tickets for the stand for next year.
Yorkshire were livid considering that is when the stand was meant to be demolished or building work started.
good article on yesterday members meeting.
http://cricketyorkshire.com/yorkshireccc-agm/

Leeds Rhinos made the decision to sell season tickets for the Main Stand because of delays to planning permission for the stadium, housing development and Leeds Council withdrawing a £4 Million grant. Makes sense because it is The Main Stand and the only stand with seating, also the stand will be in operation for the South Africa ODI, by which Leeds Rhinos will have played 6 Super League home games. Any delays to building work mean the Rugby League club can sell tickets for more home games before it does get knocked down. Not sure where the claims of Leeds Rhinos not playing ball and Yorkshire are livid have come from.

[Dr Cricket]

Well whatever the reason earliest times the work could take place is in feb 2018 and by then it might be too late to save Cricket world cup games or even get international games till 2024.
Also on the Article I posted said this.

"Leeds Rhinos then threw a spanner in the works by selling 2017 Super League tickets in the South Stand that was earmarked to be demolished, thus delaying the project and making Yorkshire County Cricket Club twitchy.

You can understand the vested interests at play here. This is a shared stand with a shared ambition to build a world-class stadium but rugby and cricket both needs to stack the numbers in the meantime.

Arthur struck a sombre tone; he talked of having to find a way forward in a matter of weeks but coming up with a cool four million is better said than done.

The view of the Yorkshire County Cricket Club board is that without the £38m stand redevelopment, deemed essential by the ECB to be in the mix to host the 2019 World Cup and future international cricket, the county will be taking a disastrous, retrograde step."

[Dr Cricket]

Well the work has to be started by September the latest if Yorkshire are to host 2019 world cup games.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/2017 ... d-funding/

[sussexpob]

Permit me to get all Denzel Washington a la "Philadelphia" on you, but please explain this to me like I am a 5 year old. Are you trying to tell me that the top dog at the ECB has the best part of 25 million pounds invested in a county team, and therefore has a direct and quite serious financial interest in the well being of this club?

If this is even remotely true, then Yorkshire should be getting "Durham'd" and Graves should be unemployed. Thats a ludicrous conflict of interest!!! How the hell has that been allowed to happen? Graves had a serious part in negotiating the welfare of a team that was a serious competitor to one he is owed money by.... who's to say he didnt relegate Durham and dock them T20 points because they were in the same frigging group as a team he essentially finances?

Yorkshire win, he makes a return on his investment. Yorkshire host tests, he sees a return on his investment. Yorkshire upgrade their stadium and make more money, he sees a return on his investment. Yorkshire get guaranteed a T20 1.3 million quid, and he sees a return on his investment.

Sorry, but this cant be true. If it is true, its scandalous.

[westoelad]

Graves defence is that the loan is from the Graves family trust over which he claims he has no control!!! And his nose didn't grow any larger as he said it. But there are other instances of conflicts of interest. The committee who stripped Durham of Test match status contained the chairmen of 2 counties who themselves stage Test matches. Likewise the committee who allocate test matches I suspect. But the bottom line is that all county chairmen had a vote on electing Graves to office when being fully aware of that potential conflict.

[Alviro Patterson]

Any money Colin Graves put into the club was done years before he took on any cricketing positions. Before Graves took on the ECB Chairman role, he acted as a guarantor to the loans made by Leeds City Council and HSBC. Since Graves became ECB Chairman, the Graves Family Trust is now a major creditor of Yorkshire CCC and the clubs financial position has improved in that time. Financial losses have turned into profit and the loan from Leeds City Council has been repaid.

Whether the Graves Family Trust want to profit from Yorkshire CCC and Colin's involvement with the ECB is a compeletely different matter. It is entirely possible that the Family Trust just want their money back and any interest written in the loan greement is done for commercial purposes.

As for conflict of interest - if Yorkshire CCC are to host major international matches then they must improve Headingley Stadium. Remember Headingley is not a guaranteed host venue for the 2019 Cricket World Cup.

[westoelad]

I sincerely hope that Yorkshire CC can resolve this difficulty but as the chairman points out getting £40m into debt to do so would be a massive burden. I can't see any relevance in when Graves actually made his loan; fact is Yorkshire still owe him or his family trust £20+ million,can't see how that doesn't constitute a conflict of interest. Neither do I see any significance of a £300k profit in a year when they hosted international fixtures when a business hasn't made inroads into that debt. But then I'm no accountant and it probably shows.

[Hampshire]

MCC v Middlesex is being streamed if anyone wants to watch : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQ8opcdhgFo.