In a first, Zimbabwe will become the first team in modern cricket to receive a “touring fee” from the hosts in bilateral cricket when they will travel to England for a one-off Test match in the summer of 2025. England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) chief executive Richard Gould confirmed this development on Sky Sports, as per ESPNCrinfo. During the Final World Podcast last year had said that a collective push was needed by all full member nations in cricket to eliminate revenue disparity and treat players and fans to quality Test cricket. This touring fee was one of the recommendations he had made.

“There is a huge responsibility,” Gould said to former England captain Mike Atherton on Sky Sports about need to ensure competitiveness in Tests by big cricketing nations like India, Australia and England.

“When you look at whether it is 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 is delivered.”

“For example, next year Zimbabwe are coming to tour [England]. Normally, the way the things happen is that it is the touring team gets itself into the country and then it is looked after in terms of accommodation, all the rest of it. But there is no fee for that team that is touring. Next year when we play against Zimbabwe, there will be a fee for that team that’s touring,” he concluded.

The high and increasing costs of touring for Test cricket and hosting it in smaller countries, where the broadcasting rights have turned negligible due to lack of viewers, had cast a doubt on Test cricket. This had promoted Cricket West Indies (CWI) CEO to say that the revenue sharing model of ICC was broken, earlier this year after the two-match Test series against Australia, which made headlines as a seven-wicket haul by Shamar Joseph helped WI secure a rare Test win at the Gabba.

“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 have seen zero dollars back,” Grave told ESPNcricinfo in January.

“Is that really fair, reasonable and sustainable?,” he had questioned.

Gould said the financially weaker boards like CWI have his sympathy and was positive of finding ways to keep them afloat. Notably, West Indies is currenly playing a three-match series against England in UK.

“I had conversations with the West Indies six, nine months back before they arrived, [about] what assistance we can we provide. And it is interesting because it would not 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. 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 is not always about the money. It is, and, and there are different ways of doing it,” said Gould.

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