ECB<\/a> has a staging agreement with the International Cricket Council to host the next three WTC finals on a biennial basis until 2031. The terms of that contract state that it must be held in London and Lord\u2019s had been earmarked after staging the past two finals, but concerns over the state of the pitch has led the ECB to consider moving the final to the Oval.<\/p>\nAlthough spread over four days as a result of rain, England\u2019s 115\u2011run victory against New Zealand at Lord\u2019s this month was completed in 166 overs due to the bowler\u2011friendly conditions.<\/p>\n
The ECB\u2019s contract with the Marylebone Cricket Club guarantees Lord\u2019s two Tests each summer so if it is passed over for the WTC final it would get the Bangladesh game.<\/p>\n
Such an outcome would mean that four of the seven Tests next summer would take place in London, and there would be no Test cricket in the north of England.<\/p>\n
The ECB has already faced criticism for its choice of Ashes venues, with Edgbaston, Trent Bridge and the Rose Bowl in Southampton staging matches alongside Lord\u2019s and the Oval.<\/p>\n
Old Trafford had been expected to stage England\u2019s pre-Ashes Test, although Lancashire is understood to be happy to sit out as long as they receive compensation from the ECB.<\/p>\n
The choice of Bangladesh as opponents may also raise eyebrows, as two Tests against them in Dhaka and Chittagong have been scheduled for February before England play Australia in the 150th anniversary Test the following month. As a result, England will have nine Tests in succession in 2027 against either Bangladesh or Australia.<\/p>\n
The ECB is expected to confirm details of next summer\u2019s schedule next month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"England will prepare for the Ashes series next summer with a one-off Test against Bangladesh in late May.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":651696,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-651695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-cricket","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=651695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/651696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=651695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=651695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=651695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}