{"id":1531,"date":"2026-03-04T04:47:40","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T04:47:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/?p=1531"},"modified":"2026-03-04T09:13:30","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T09:13:30","slug":"cjen1v2k2zkoat_mediumrssat_campaignrss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/?p=1531","title":{"rendered":"Rod Bransgrove: Hampshire group chairman on danger to counties"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Hampshire Cricket group chairman Rod Bransgrove has called for the England and Wales Cricket Board to provide support to counties with fewer financial opportunities in a bid to help “level the playing field”.<\/b><\/p>\n

The 76-year-old has been at Hampshire since 2000 and highlighted Sussex as an example of a club that could disappear if not helped by the governing body.<\/p>\n

Sussex have been hit with points deductions<\/a> for financial issues that recently led to their chairman standing down<\/a> from his role. <\/p>\n

“I’m very conscious of the situation that Sussex find themselves in and I’m very sympathetic towards them,” Bransgrove told BBC South Today.<\/p>\n

“There’s not only Sussex, there’s a few of them who have a very difficult job in balancing the books and have the odds stacked against them.<\/p>\n

“Unless the national governing body comes to the table then I think we’ll lose counties and I think that would be a tragedy and not fair either.”<\/p>\n

Bransgrove has been credited with playing a key role in developing Hampshire from the brink of insolvency to becoming one of the powerhouses in the county set-up. <\/p>\n

As well as hosting Hampshire games in the regular season, the Utilita Bowl – which is celebrating its 25th year – is the home of the Southern Brave Hundred side and regularly hosts England matches and concerts.<\/p>\n

In 2027 the venue will welcome an Ashes Test for the first time.<\/p>\n

“I think it is quite difficult [for other counties] when you don’t have these facilities,” Bransgrove added.<\/p>\n

“It’s very difficult for those clubs who don’t offer international cricket, Hundred or franchise cricket – they’re not actually working to the same financial model.<\/p>\n

“I don’t want to get into a long debate about the ECB but I do believe that they should be getting more support from the centre, not being told that they have to diversify their business. I think that’s completely wrong.<\/p>\n

“The ECB was set up as that diversification to benefit from the international cricket that England play an awful lot of these days for a lot of money.”<\/p>\n

In late 2024, Hampshire signed a deal with Delhi Capitals co-owners GMR Group to finalise a takeover.<\/a><\/p>\n

Bransgrove teased that the majority owners have big plans to take the club and stadium to another level.<\/p>\n

“They’re looking at making further extensions to make this one of the best grounds in the world,” he said. <\/p>\n

“The future for this club now is secure. We’ve got it to a point where now a much larger organisation with a great philosophy about worldwide cricket can take over with deep pockets and the ability to invest further.<\/p>\n

“Phase one of this rescue of Hampshire is complete, and I think phase two now is for Hampshire to kick on and be a super club on a global basis.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hampshire Cricket group chairman Rod Bransgrove has called for the England and Wales Cricket Board to provide support to counties with fewer financial opportunities in a bid to help “level the playing field”. The 76-year-old has been at Hampshire since 2000 and highlighted Sussex as an example of a club that could disappear if not<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1532,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1531\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}