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The casualties of the COVID-19 pandemic has made it again into the headlines of cricket news since English and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) Chief Executive Tom Harrison revealed that cricket will approximately lose £380m if the 2020 season remains suspended this summer. 

Due to the pandemic spreading across the globe, many sports’ governing bodies have decided to defer several competitions and tournaments to adhere to the implemented home quarantine in the midst of a nationwide lockdown in each country. 

However, this continued to take a toll on business districts, employers and employees who are forced to stay at home to prevent the further spread of the disease. Many people are worried about their basic needs and how to sustain their everyday life.

Although the government tries to limit the casualties caused by the pandemic through disseminating proper aid and providing mass testing for some countries, the drastic numbers of confirmed cases and death tolls remain on the rise. 

Even sports betting sites were forced to halt operations in terms of placing bets on the cricket odds of the match because there are still no available matches as of now. 

Although online gambling is thriving amid this situation, ECB fears that if this continues, cricket will be greatly affected due to losing a huge sum of money, making it hard to get back on track and smoothly sustain operations upon return. 

Even if the Test series in Twenty20 format between Pakistan national cricket team and West Indies takes place or the One Day International (ODI) resumes behind closed doors, cricket will still lose a tremendous amount of £100m this year. 

Tom Harrison mentioned that this situation becomes ‘the most significant financial challenge we have ever faced’.

“Our ability to mitigate the potential financial impact does require us to try when it is safe to do so to play cricket again with government support. It is going to help us fill that hole. We are staring at a £100m-plus loss whatever happens.”  

“The ability for us to play Test cricket is further complicated because bringing in teams from other parts of the world,” he explained. 

Although cricket was supposed to commence in the first week of April 2020, uncertainty still remains prevalent since there is still no cure for the spreading disease, and cricket suspension might last until the start of July. 

In relation, ECB Chief Executive Harrison mentioned, “We anticipate the cost of no cricket this year could be as bad as £380m, that is the worst-case scenario for us. That would be the loss of 800 days of cricket across all of our professional clubs and the ECB,”

“The complexities of lockdown in those nations means there’s a huge amount of complexity to bring teams over, follow government guidelines and get players ready,”

“We are staring at a £100m plus loss this year whatever happens. But with the following wind, hopefully, we will be able to play a significant number of Test matches this summer which will help us mitigate those financial losses,” he explained.

In response to the revenue loss and alleged exclusion of women’s and grassroots cricket, Harrison mentioned, “We will do whatever we can and whatever is in our power to protect women’s cricket.”

Despite the challenges faced by cricket in this unprecedented situation, Harrison remained optimistic with the future of the Hundred ‘profit centre’ project. He says it would accumulate approximately £11m if it was launched this year, that’s why it would definitely become a success in its launch in 2021. 

“In terms of the position we put ourselves in for the Hundred, right at the moment Covid-19 struck we were in a very, very strong place,” Harrison said.

The ECB Chief Executive also mentioned that they were already able to sell 175,000 tickets by the end of February 2020 and was astounded because “the game had never sold that number of tickets at that speed before, with the exception of the Cricket World Cup,” 

“So we were in a very strong position to achieve exactly what we set out to achieve in terms of growing the audience for cricket in this country,” he added. 

Stay updated with the latest cricket news in the industry and don’t forget to learn more about cricket odds in order to prepare yourself once matches resume.