Middlesex are weighing up their options for a future away from Lord's, their county home for the past 160 years, amid growing concerns about the club's lack of first-class infrastructure. However, chief executive Andrew Cornish believes that the ground would still have a duty to serve the needs of North London's cricket community, and should even be open to the prospect of hosting two Hundred teams in the future.
Middlesex has been MCC's primary tenant at Lord's since 1864, with the grandeur of the venue contributing to the club's status as one of English cricket's most successful counties. Middlesex's total of 13 outright County Championship titles, most recently in 2016, place them third on the all-time list, behind only Yorkshire and Surrey.
However, that absence of bricks and mortar has been a mounting issue for the club in recent months, particularly since the advent of the Hundred, a tournament for which host-venue clubs are expected - under plans currently being finalised by the ECB - to be gifted 51% equity shares of their respective teams.
That situation has left MCC, rather than Middlesex, as the primary drivers of the Lord's-based London Spirit, while Middlesex's fellow London-based county, Surrey, who recorded an £8 million profit last year, have similarly expressed plans to incorporate the Oval Invincibles into their own club branding.
And while Cornish, Middlesex's chief executive, insists that Middlesex's "nomadic" status does come with benefits - most particularly none of the debt that contributed to Gloucestershire's £1.19 million losses last year - he recognises a strategic re-evaluation could be required for the club to retain its status within the English game.
"It's likely that MCC will probably want to run London Spirit on their own, but that opens us up to some very constructive conversations," Cornish told ESPNcricinfo. "It frees us up to explore more ambitious medium- to longer-term opportunities for Middlesex.
"Middlesex has had a history of a slightly nomadic lifestyle. We've successfully done that for 160 years and had a lot of success. We are a tenant with a strategic relationship with MCC, and it's not all bad, because when MCC redevelop the Tavern and Allen Stands, they are the ones redeveloping it, not us. But the trade-off is we play at Lord's. When we attract new players, like Mark Stoneman or Leus du Plooy, one of the reasons they come is to call this home."
That relationship came under intense scrutiny last year, however, when Middlesex were placed under special measures by the ECB, following a series of financial irregularities, including a mismanagement of the pension fund, and a rancorous and ongoing dispute with their former chief executive Richard Goatley.
Though Middlesex did manage to record a small profit of £131,000 in 2023-24, their first since 2016, they have opted this year to forego overseas players in a bid to mitigate their costs, and have also chosen to host two "home" T20 Blast matches at Essex's home ground in Chelmsford, rather than go through the expense of erecting temporary facilities at their outgrounds in Merchant Taylor's School or Radlett.
"The questions we were asked were legitimate, and some of the answers were very hard to have to give," Cornish said. "I accept it will take time to build back that confidence, even internally with players and staff in the office. But I would argue now that we are the most compliant, most scrutinised county in the country."
They are not, however, a club with much leverage in the game's febrile current climate - a fact that became apparent once again last week when Essex pipped Middlesex's bid to host a Tier 1 women's team from 2025. Though the award was made partly on the strength of the club's ties with East London's cricket community, Cornish described the situation as "disappointing" and "surprising", given that his county's 4.5 million population offers a potential playing pool that is second only to Yorkshire's.
"With the best will in the world, Chelmsford isn't in London," Cornish said. "London has two Hundred teams, but only one women's elite cricket team, and I struggle to fathom that one out. If you're coming from the big cricketing communities of Middlesex - Harrow, Ealing, Hounslow, Brentford - which have very large African Caribbean and Southeast Asian populations, Chelmsford is a long way from there."
The club has continued to invest in those communities - not least in Brentford where the pharmaceuticals giant GlaxoSmithKline gifted the club a ground that will predominantly be used as a training base for the county's women's teams. Last week, Andrew Strauss opened a new facility at Merchant Taylor's school that features a wicket block on the same gradient as the slope at Lord's, and an indoor school that Strauss described as the best of its kind he had ever seen.
There have been moves to promote the Middlesex brand overseas as well, including the signing of a recent Memorandum of Understanding with the Pakistan Cricket Board. "Middlesex isn't going to go bust," Cornish said. "We have a very robust two-year plan. Of course, you can never say never after the pandemic, but within our control, we are on a very strong financial footing now. And it's only going to get stronger."
That said, there's no escaping the importance of Lord's to the county's existing business model, but Cornish was bullish about the need for the ground to meet its obligations to the wider London community that Middlesex represents.
"The majority of elite cricket that's put on here is put on by Middlesex. I think the majority of MCC members do care passionately about Middlesex and how Middlesex do," Cornish said. "All of the financial modelling that's been done by Deloitte shows that, if there's an expansion of the Hundred, London should have three or maybe even four teams. We've got to get away from the romance of certain things, and run this as a business.
"Why could Lord's not become like the San Siro in Milan, and have AC Milan and Inter Milan both playing here? We will focus on that as our ambition right now."