A group of past Middlesex players led by Mike Gatting, the former England captain, has delivered a withering assessment of the county’s leadership on the eve of the new season and warned the club risks “drifting towards irrelevance”.
In an open letter to members – a clarion call ahead of the club’s annual general meeting on 15 April – Gatting and his co-signatories have highlighted a lack of transparency and called the cricket setup “a mess”. Desmond Haynes, the former West Indies opener, and England’s Mark Ramprakash are among others to have put their names to the letter.
They wrote: “Middlesex was once a byword for excellence in the game, a club with a proud history of success and a strong, competitive culture brought about by hard work on and off the pitch. Instead, around the counties the men’s teams now are variously regarded as ‘a soft touch’ and ‘lacking fight’.
“The club has been poorly led for too long. Middlesex is first and foremost a cricket club, but the leadership lacks any real cricketing knowledge. Only one person with first-class experience occupies a board position, while only two such former players appear on any of the club’s committees. The cricket administration is structurally a mess, is devoid of accountability and lacks proper checks and balances.”
Middlesex, who won their 11th County Championship title in 2016 (two shared), will begin a third straight season in Division Two this week after their most recent relegation in 2023. Last summer saw them finish second bottom of the south group in the T20 Blast and exit the Metro Bank Cup at the quarter-final stage. Their women’s team operates in the second tier of county competitions but did win the T20 Blast League 2 last summer.
Headaches are also starting to mount off the field. They remain the only first-class county not to own their own ground and disbursements from the England and Wales Cricket Board account for around 60% of their income, compared to an average of 25% across the 18 first-class counties.
There is also a lack of access to the money from last year’s Hundred sale as this is ringfenced for debt repayment – minimal in their case – and infrastructure improvements. Though a comparatively small thing, this week’s media day will not include photography because the new kit is yet to be delivered.
Financial issues previously saw Middlesex placed under special measures by the England and Wales Cricket Board in 2023 and they have been looking to attract outside investment since. This has included exploring demutualisation. This year’s accounts are yet to be published but losses are expected.
The club is also currently being run by an interim chief operating officer, Mahdi Choudhury, on secondment from Marylebone Cricket Club. The club’s chief executive, Andrew Cornish, has been on a “leave of absence” since late last year following an allegation of misconduct. That case – something Cornish denies – is with the Cricket Regulator.
This fresh intervention, including signatures from John Emburey, Clive Radley and the former president Mike Selvey, focuses chiefly on the men’s cricket operation. They highlight a failure to produce sufficient homegrown players, despite a large catchment area in north London and a history of silverware.
The group continued: “The players are a product of their environment and in areas where the standard of coaching has been poor, the players have not been sufficiently challenged resulting in inadequate standards becoming the norm, insufficient to compete at the level to which we should aspire.
“We would strongly encourage members who genuinely want their club to flourish again and not get left behind drifting towards irrelevance, to attend [The AGM] in numbers and seek answers, in an open forum, from those responsible.”
Middlesex are one of three clubs to face pressure from former players before the County Championship gets under way this Friday.
A group including Matt Prior and Mushtaq Ahmed called for the Sussex board to step down after financial shortcomings led to a 12-point suspension, while David Lloyd is among a collective of ex-Lancashire players openly questioning how their club is being run.
