Cricket discrimination report 'depressing reading' - MCC chief

A report detailing discrimination in English and Welsh cricket makes for "depressing reading", according to Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) chief executive and secretary Guy Lavender.

The report also recommended annual games between Eton and Harrow schools and Oxford and Cambridge universities at Lord's should be removed, and Lavender said this would be reviewed.

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In all, the ICEC has made 44 recommendations, including that the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) makes an unreserved public apology for its failings, which ECB chair Richard Thompson has done.

"My overwhelming feeling really was one of sadness that there are a great number of people have been let down by the game," Lavender told BBC Radio 5 Live.

"I think Richard Thompson's apology on behalf of the game was entirely right.

"The real fact of the matter is we're doing quite a lot to try and address these issues, but there's more that we need to do.

"I think our challenge as a game now and our challenge as a club, is to say what are we going to do in terms of the recommendations that Cindy Butts the chair of the commission has come up with - and that's a process that's going to take place really for the next three months."

Lavender also addressed the fact that the report highlighted that England's women have never played a Test at Lord's, while the "home of cricket" continues to host an annual schools fixture between Eton and Harrow and the university match between Cambridge and Oxford.

The MCC's executive had originally decided to relocate the Eton-Harrow and Cambridge-Oxford games from Lord's but kept them at the ground until at least 2027 following complaints from MCC members.

"I think we need to review that in light of the report in the next few months," said Lavender.

"Any reasonable-minded listener would view that you've got to work out whether you can do both. Whether that's good enough … and the commission's view was that it wasn't.

"That's really where we are - how do you balance out tradition and create new opportunities for kids and young people to play at Lord's?"

On England playing a women's Test at Lord's, he added: "There's been a general sense, particularly with the ECB, that you want to play some of the women's international matches in the early days at smaller grounds while you build up a capacity.

"But we sold the highest amount of tickets for a women's international last year, and have surpassed that for the Women's Ashes this year.

"We'll play a women's Test in 2026, so we've moving in the right direction but there is more to be done."

Cricket 'must evolve' - Fry

MCC presidents are nominated by their predecessors and serve 12-month terms

Comedian and Stephen Fry was named MCC president in October last year.

He said the ICEC report included some "tough truths" and said the sport must "evolve".

"I have been trying to suggest this for some years," Fry said. "I gave the spirit of cricket lecture and tried to make these points, that the game must evolve.

"It has always been a game that has been a few steps behind the culture.

"In some ways, cricket is a bit like the Royal Family.

"It can appear to be a fusty, old-fashioned, pointless, ridiculous, ritualistic institution but it has always survived, by evolving just in time to keep going.

"Tradition is great but traditions are made by new generations and they evolve."