THE England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has announced a loss of £16.1M in the past financial year as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
The loss has been transferred to their reserves, which are now £2.2M, down from more than £70M in 2016.
The loss follows a £6.5M profit made in 2019.
Revenue fell by £21M to £207M with the postponed launch of The Hundred cited as one reason, alongside the cost of running bio-secure cricket.
Scott Smith, chief financial officer at the ECB, said: “This has been a challenging year, but by being able to stage international cricket and by taking decisive action early in the pandemic, we have been able to support the network and avoid a far worse financial scenario.

“There remains considerable uncertainty over the year ahead, but we hope that delivering another full summer of cricket – and with crowds beginning to return from next week – we are able to protect the revenue we need to invest in growing our game.”
The ECB reduced costs by stopping planned investments, furloughing staff and through redundancy, which has seen staff reduced to 331 from 389.
This enabled them to provide counties and clubs with almost £100M of support.
Meanwhile, Baroness Amos’ appointment as an independent non-executive director has been unanimously ratified.
Ian Watmore, ECB chair, said: “Valerie is a true cricket fan who brings with her outstanding experience and expertise, and I’m delighted that she’s joined the board. Her insights and challenge on leadership and inclusion will also really help us as a game.” (BBC Sport)