ECB to give touring fee to Zimbabwe for one-off Test in 2025

In a noble gesture, ECB are set to give a "touring fee" to Zimbabwe for their one-off Test against Ben Stokes and Co. in 2025. The African side will be travelling to the United Kingdom to play the red-ball contest during the English summer.

ECB chief executive Richard Gould confirmed the development during a recent interview. He had previously been vocal about the need for cricket boards which generate more revenues like BCCI, CA, and ECB to step forward and ensure that the quality of Test cricket remained healthy. He had mentioned this point during last year's Final Word podcast. Since then, one solution Gould has recommended and reiterated, including twice this week, is for the host board to pay a fee to travelling teams.

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"There's a huge responsibility. When you look at whether it's the revenue share from the ICC or indeed the revenue share from bilateral cricket, which is fairly old fashioned in truth in the way that it's delivered. For example, next year Zimbabwe are coming to tour [England]. Normally the way the things happen is that it's the touring team gets itself into the country and then it's looked after in terms of accommodation, all the rest of it. But there's no fee for that team that's touring. Next year when we play against Zimbabwe, there will be a fee for that team that's touring," Gould told former England captain Mike Atherton on Sky Sports about need for the ECB, BCCI, and CA to ensure Test cricket is competitive.

England are one of the few cricketing nations which take red-ball cricket very seriously. They also receive fantastic support from the fans, who fill the stands to watch the purest format of the sport.

Seeing the significant dip in the revenue generated through broadcasting rights for Test cricket and the increasing cost of keeping Test cricket strong, CWI CEO Johnny Grave was compelled to say the ICC's revenue-share model was completely broken. Grave was responding to criticism of West Indies sending a second-string side to Australia for their two-match Test series in Australia earlier this year, where Shamar Joseph grabbed the headlines with a magical spell in Brisbane.

"CWI has spent over 2 million dollars sending teams to Australia in the last four months and whilst CA have received all the economic benefits from those series, we've seen zero dollars back," Grave had told ESPNcricinfo in January. "Is that really fair, reasonable and sustainable?"

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Gould said that financially weaker boards like CWI had his "sympathy", but remained optimistic of finding methods to keep them strong.

"I had conversations with the West Indies six, nine months back before they arrived, [about] what assistance we can we provide. And it's interesting because it won't just be on the Test match cycle. For example, we played an extra two T20s before Christmas in the West Indies [in 2023] in order to help them," Gould stated.

"The specific request that came from the West Indies in this for this particular tour is: can you help us with an Under-19 tour at some point so that we can get more of our players getting access red-ball cricket in those [England] conditions? So, it's not always about the money. It's, and, and there are different ways of doing it," he added.