Hampshire settlement linked to 2027 Ashes venue schedule

The Guardian reports that the England and Wales Cricket Board paid Hampshire about £1 million after a legal challenge over the allocation of the 2023 Ashes. The dispute is also reported to have shaped the venue schedule for the 2027 series, which will feature no Test in northern England.

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According to the report, Hampshire believed it had been promised its first Ashes Test at the Rose Bowl during a 2018 meeting involving the 18 first-class counties. That proposed schedule would have placed 2023 matches at the Rose Bowl, Old Trafford, Edgbaston, Lord's and the Oval, while Headingley was due to host in 2027.

The Guardian says the ECB's original plan was subsequently changed after a four-person independent panel recommended moving the Test earmarked for Hampshire to Headingley. Yorkshire staged the third Test of the 2023 series, which England won by three wickets. An ECB release issued when the venues were announced said then-chair Colin Graves had recused himself from the panel's recommendations and the board made the final decision.

Graves, a former Yorkshire chair who returned to the county in 2024, told the newspaper he was not involved in awarding international matches. He said venues were assessed through a balanced-scorecard system by an independent host venue panel and that he left the room when its recommendations were discussed.

Hampshire then launched a legal challenge that ended in an out-of-court settlement, the report says. The payment is understood to have been approved by the ECB board several years later, after Graves had left his ECB role in 2020. Both Hampshire and the ECB declined to comment to The Guardian.

The 2027 Ashes schedule has Trent Bridge as the only venue north of Edgbaston, with the remaining Tests at Lord's, the Oval and Hampshire's ground, now known as the Utilita Bowl. It will be Hampshire's first Ashes Test, although the venue has staged other men's Tests and hosted three Tests and three Twenty20 internationals behind closed doors during the disrupted 2020 season. The reported settlement adds significant background to a venue selection that has already drawn public criticism.