India's bid to host Test final thwarted as England close to landing long-term deal
English cricket is close to agreeing to host the next three World Test Championship finals despite an attempt from India to stage the show-piece event.
The World Test Championship (WTC) began in 2019 and has run three two-year cycles, all of which concluded with a final in England in June.
India expressed an interest to stage the game in International Cricket Council (ICC) meetings and there has been discussion about sharing hosting rights around the world.
It is understood, however, that in recent days, officials from the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) have been verbally informed of the ICC's intention to host the next three finals on these shores.
It is expected that the decision will be rubber-stamped at the ICC's Annual Conference in Singapore next month, but the ECB are expected to begin planning the 2027 edition of the WTC final promptly after the current one, between Australia and South Africa, ends.
The next cycle of the WTC begins on Friday, June 20 with the first Test of England's five-match series against India. Despite mooted changes to two divisions, the WTC's structure will remain the same for this cycle as the last.
With a vast population, wealth and an insatiable appetite for the game, India is the dominant force in world cricket. The ICC's Indian chairman Jay Shah has been at this year's final. Until November when he moved across to ICC, the 36-year-old son of Amit Shah, a close ally of president Narendra Modi and India's Minister of Home Affairs, was in charge of the BCCI.
The Indian influence at ICC headquarters is expected to extend with the appointment of Sanjog Gupta, of broadcast giants Jiostar, as chief executive.
The three finals so far have all been at different venues in England. In 2021, when Covid-19 protocols were still in place, the Utilita Bowl in Southampton hosted the game between New Zealand, who won, and India, because of its ability to house the players on site. In 2023, Australia beat India at the Kia Oval, which hosted in part because of sponsorship snags at Lord's, where the game has been played this week.
History and prestige means Lord's will be the strong favourites to host the game again in 2027, but conversations over exactly where it is played remain at a nascent stage. Ease of global travel to London makes the capital the natural choice, but more northerly venues could come into contention. In 2027, there is no Ashes Test north of Nottingham.
England have failed to qualify for any of the first three finals they have hosted and have developed a complicated relationship with the tournament. England's captain Ben Stokes has described it as 'utterly confusing' because teams do not play the same number of matches, and railed against the over-rate regulations used in the tournament.
Despite India's attempt to host the game, there has been an acceptance that England is its natural home. June is the preferred month to host the game because it allows the body of the tournament to be completed before the IPL window, and the final to take place after it. In June, the UK's weather is well-suited to cricket, and the time zone is friendly for broadcast purposes, too.
Most important, though, is English cricket's ability to sell tickets for neutral matches due to its multi-cultural population. There was some concern when India failed to qualify for the final for the first time that there would be swathes of empty seats at Lord's, but Marylebone Cricket Club, who own the ground, cut ticket prices and more than 75,000 fans attended the first three days. The considerable Australian and South Africa diaspora in London, and the ease of global access to the city add to the appeal.
The fear is that in other countries fans would turn out to watch their own team or India, but not for a neutral game.
The other major hurdle for a final in India is their relationship with Pakistan, with the two countries now refusing to travel to one another for ICC events. India's games – including the final – in this year's Pakistan-hosted Champions Trophy took place in Dubai, while the women's World Cup later this year is set to feature Pakistan matches in Sri Lanka.
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The difficult part about writing up an interview with Farokh Engineer is choosing where to start. Do you go with one of his stories about George Best, Denis Compton, Sir Donald Bradman, Muhammad Ali or Sir Alex Ferguson, to name just a few of the sporting legends we chat about? Or how about this one. 'You know Pele once slept in that room?' he says pointing at an upstairs window of his detached house in Cheshire. 'I met him at a dinner in Stoke organised by Gordon Banks. He was playing Mere Golf Club the next day, which is right next to my house, so I said: 'Come over and stay.' 'My wife took him up a cup of tea in the morning, he was very nice. Then we played golf with Bobby.' With Bobby? 'Yes, Bobby Charlton.' 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I just thought, whatever a wicket-keeper can reach with his gloves on is the wicket-keeper's catch. When Jack Bond was captain at Lancs, the first slip was called Butlin's, you know, you go to Butlin's for a holiday because you never got a ball. 'I covered a huge area, and I enjoyed it. That was my domain. I wanted to keep wicket to Brian Statham, such a nice man. He said publicly if I was behind the stumps throughout his career he would have finished with twice as many victims. I said: 'George [Statham's nickname], you must have been drunk when you said that.' Because he had Godfrey Evans, who was my hero. 'In those days English bowlers used to pick the seam, it was almost allowed, with the result that Statham's inswinger when it pitched middle and off, coming in, I used to charge down the leg side because I would get so many leg-slip catches which were four runs before that. I got a couple of stumpings off him down the leg side. When the ball was not carrying I would stand up to the stumps. 'We were in the Cayman Islands once with Fred Trueman. It was past his time.' Engineer now breaks into his very good Trueman impression. ''I'm the quickest bowler in t'world.' And anyway I got a couple of stumpings off him. 'Stop it', Fred said. 'People will think I'm a slow bowler'. 'These people, just legends of the game. I'm so lucky… Chandrasekhar, Prasanna, Bedi, Venkat. The other three were pretty easy to keep to but Chandrasekhar was very interesting to keep to because he bowled about 62mph. Normally he spun the ball viciously both ways, without knowing himself which way the ball was going three quarters of the time because he was a polio victim, his wrist bent a bit further. 'Time and again he bowled a batsman with a googly and I said: 'Chandra, you tried to bowl a leg-spinner there, didn't you?' And he'd say: 'Yeah, yeah.' He was a very humble man. And I think he was the greatest spinner in the world. I could read him because I saw him grip the ball and saw the way it left his fingers. I saw it in the air and off the pitch. For me, it was like a split-second computerised effect because I could read him.' Engineer feels that '99 per cent' of modern keepers have technical problems. 'In T20 you can get away with a batsman who can keep but not in Test cricket. You've got to have a proper keeper, not a backstop. I've watched modern keepers and they get up too soon. They snatch the ball, which is OK standing back. Some people only half-squat. I found you had to be right down, so it was much easier to stay low to go for diving catches or catches that don't carry. It is much easier to come up than to come up and go down again – you lose a fraction of a second. So when they are playing [in the] sub-continent and the ball is lower and slower, they struggle.' Keeping was in Engineer's blood. He describes his childhood growing up in Bombay with his older brother Darius, who was a good club cricketer, and how keeping to him for the first time opened up his path in life. In the evenings after school he would throw a soft ball against a corrugated wall so it could bounce in any direction, and try to catch it. 'I went to Don Bosco School and my best friend was Shashi Kapoor, who would go on to be one of the great Bollywood actors. We were sitting on a bench in class yapping away one day when suddenly I saw this huge wooden duster hurled 100 miles per hour at us by the teacher. I'm telling you, he should have been a cover point for India. I think he would have hit the stumps every time. 'Anyway, I saw this duster hurtling straight toward his [Kapoor's] face, and suddenly my sixth sense kicked in, I just stretched my hand out and caught the duster literally an inch from his face. I used to tease him that instead of getting the hero roles in films he would have ended up in horror movies if I hadn't caught that duster.' 'I stood up Miss Adelaide for Don Bradman' Engineer is still celebrated when he goes back to India every year, often when a birthday party is held in his honour. He was presented with a lifetime achievement award by the BCCI during the first England Test in Hyderabad last year but his links to Mumbai have faded. He sold his house on trendy Cuffe Parade years ago. 'I sold it for tuppence, and today it is probably worth about £40 million. The Ambanis live next door. I never imagined property would just go sky high all of a sudden. So, yeah, whenever I see that property, I feel a bit sick.' While we are chatting, Engineer's wife is searching for a Baggy Green cap given to him as a gift by Bradman, which excites the photographer but is somewhere in storage. Instead he poses with a silver bat awarded for being top run scorer in a series against England. There is a quote from Bradman on the back of Engineer's autobiography that describes him as one of the 'game's great ambassadors on and off the field'. The respect was formed during a tour to Australia. 'We were playing in Adelaide and I slipped over wearing rubber-soled shoes. Sir Don Bradman came into our dressing room and gave me a big telling off but invited me to his house for dinner. I had a date with Miss Adelaide that night, so I gave her number to one of my team-mates and told him to have a good time. 'I went to the Bradmans' house and just wanted a beer and a steak but they gave me carrot juice and a vegetarian meal, thinking that's what Indians ate and drank. Anyway, Sir Don gets out a projector and we start watching films of his innings. It is a bit odd, but he's Don Bradman. What do you say? He told me about this shot and that shot he played and said I was too flamboyant. As I left I gave him a gift and he went away and came back with a cap, his baggy green.' Engineer will be at Old Trafford for the India Test match in July. The struggles of his club this summer – coach and captain sacked and the team languishing in division two – have upset him. 'My heart bleeds. I can't bear to even open the papers. There is something radically wrong that needs to be rectified because Lancs are a great club. Bottom of the second division, I just can't believe it.' He thinks the retirement of Virat Kohli will help England but describes this India team as among the best to tour this country. 'They could probably pick two teams that would give England a run for their money.' A couple of weeks after our interview, I call to check on how the heart operation went. 'Yes, all good,' he laughs. 'I'm still alive and kicking.' The storyteller still has more tales to tell.
