ECB-Hampshire legal row shapes 2027 Ashes venues

The absence of Ashes cricket from the north of England in 2027 stems from a legal dispute over how venues were allocated for the 2023 series against Australia, the Guardian reports, which also saw the England and Wales Cricket Board pay Hampshire around £1m in damages.

Hampshire brought the legal Challenge after missing out on hosting a Test in the 2023 Ashes to Yorkshire, who staged the third Test at Headingley — a match England won by three wickets. The county is understood to have argued it had been promised its first Ashes Test at the Rose Bowl that summer, agreed at a meeting of the 18 first-class counties in 2018 alongside fixtures at Old Trafford, Edgbaston, Lord's and the Oval, with Headingley pencilled in for a Test in 2027 instead.

The ECB's original plan had been to give Old Trafford the Test in 2023 and Headingley one in 2027, the Guardian was told. That changed after a four-person independent panel recommended the fixture set aside for Hampshire go to Headingley instead.

The ECB was chaired at the time by Colin Graves, a former Yorkshire chair who returned to Headingley in 2024 to help address the club's financial problems. A February 2018 ECB press release announcing the 2023 venues stated that Graves had recused himself when the independent panel made its recommendation to the board, which took the final decision.

Graves told the Guardian this week: "Test matches were awarded by a 'balanced scorecard' points system assessed by an independent host venue panel."

Hampshire, founded in 1863 and now playing at the 15,000-capacity Utilita Bowl, sit fifth in this season's One-Day Cup with 16 points from eight matches. The damages payment settled the county's financial grievance over 2023, but the row over how that decision was reached looks set to keep shadowing the ECB's venue planning through to 2027.