'Ulterior motives' - Mark Butcher questions Indian investment in English cricket

Former England cricketer Mark Butcher has warned nothing will be the same again as The Hundred continues to attract huge bids from IPL owners who see England as an attractive destination to expand their franchise’s influence outside India. After the Mumbai Indians and Ambani-led Reliance group’s purchased a 49% stake in the Oval Invincibles, Lucknow Super Giants owner Sanjiv Goenka-led RPSG group acquired up to a 70% stake in the Manchester Originals. Even US-based tech groups from Silicon Valley had picked up a stake in the London Spirit.

However, the biggest among all purchases made so far was by the Sunrisers Hyderabad owners, The Sun Group. They clinched a 100% stake in the Northern Superchargers as reports suggest Yorkshire county have relinquished full ownership. All parties involved made several multi-million pound bids to buy into English cricket. Butcher, however, is worried about the massive implications this will have on the domestic structure and future of the sport in the country.

Speaking on the Wisden podcast, Butcher has criticised the lack of development and focus on improving the domestic structure, which has now led to such a critical situation. While the cash boost from team sales could benefit English cricket in the short term, the consequences could be disastrous in the coming decades. “The question is whether or not that was the intention, you put something that was very much on life support and you’ve prolonged the contract for that life support for 20 years and kept a status quo that perhaps you weren’t all that interested in keeping in the first place,” he said.

The former Surrey batter was sceptical of foreign groups backed by rich capital, particularly from India, setting up bases in English shores. With the large amount invested to buy stakes in teams, he wondered if they could gradually make radical changes to the very fabric of English cricket in the summer. “My feeling is nothing will be the same again from here," Butcher continued. "The money that has been put into the game and the people who have put it in, it means wildly different things to the two people.

"To English cricket it’s kind of a sigh of relief and my goodness haven’t we done well, for the people that have invested it isn’t a lot of money, and the question is what are they going to want? These are not charitable organisations; they expect a return for their buck and what is that going to look like?. “It’s the impact it would then have on the rest of the English summer. Ours is very short in comparison to most others given that summer is only three months of the year for us, and we try and get the best out of the other three.