English cricket has landed a multi-million pound windfall after a Silicon Valley tech consortium won a bidding war with Sanjiv Goenka for a 49% stake in London Spirit, the Hundred team based at Lord’s.
The winning bid made by the consortium, headed by Nikesh Arora of Palo Alto Networks, valued the Spirit at £295 million, more than twice the price paid by Reliance Industries Limited for Oval Invincibles on Thursday. It means they will pay £144.55m for a 49% stake in the Spirit, with MCC intending to retain its position as majority shareholder.
The price is more than double the floor valuation set by London Spirit based on investors’ indicative bids and represents a significant injection of funds into English cricket. The revenue raised in the sales process will be split between the 18 first-class counties, MCC and the recreational game and is designed to “future-proof” county cricket for the next 20 years.
The consortium comprises Sundar Pichai, Satya Nadella, Shantanu Narayen and Egon Durban, the CEOs of Google, Microsoft, Adobe and Silver Lake Management respectively, as well as Arora and Satyan Gajwani, who is one of the co-founders of the US-based Major League Cricket and vice-chairman of Times Internet, the Indian digital giant. It is understood that the consortium’s bid was spearheaded by Arora and Gajwani, after they were among the last investors to enter the race.
Goenka, whose company RPSG Group run Lucknow Super Giants in the IPL, was considered the favourite to buy a stake in the Spirit but was beaten in a three-hour bidding war on Friday afternoon, which lasted so long that the start time for the same process at Welsh Fire was delayed by an hour. RPSG Group are now expected to refocus their attention to Manchester Originals next week.
Avram Glazer, the co-owner of Manchester United, and Cain International, who are run by Chelsea director Jonathan Goldstein, were also involved in the auction process on Friday afternoon but pulled out early on.
The consortium will now enter into a period of exclusive negotiations with Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), the host venue’s owner, and complete an agreement in the eight-week window set by ECB from the completion of the final round of the bidding process. MCC has publicly maintained throughout that it intends to retain its 51% share in the Spirit.
The Spirit are defending champions in the women’s Hundred, with England captain Heather Knight leading them to their inaugural title last year and India’s Deepti Sharma hitting the winning runs. Their men’s team, by contrast, have only won three games in the last two Hundred seasons, and finished bottom in 2024.
