Huge blow for Scarborough Cricket Club as Roses Yorkshire CCC v Lancashire match moved to Headingley

The four-day match was due to be played at North Marine Road from Sunday July 11 onwards, and taking the fixture away from Scarborough will be a huge blow for the town's businesses, as many of the thousands of fans attending the cricket would have been booked into hotels and guests houses, as well as the local shops and food outlets that would have been busy with all the spectators before, during and after play each of the four days.

A statement from Yorkshire CCC said: "Following extensive planning and risk analysis, The Yorkshire County Cricket Club will now play its home LV= Insurance County Championship match against Lancashire at Emerald Headingley from Sunday 11 July.

"The showcase match was due to be hosted at Scarborough Cricket Club following lockdown restrictions being lifted. However, since the government’s decision to extend lockdown, Yorkshire Cricket and Scarborough Cricket Club have explored ways to stage the match in front of the maximum number of members, whilst creating a safe environment and following the current government guidance.

"Both clubs had hoped that sports venues would be able to provide a larger capacity than 25%, a number that has thrown up a number of challenges to satisfy spectator safety requirements. To host a match with 25% occupancy, certain criteria must be met, including demonstrating social distancing at entrances and exits, toilets, and minimising congestion around the venue.

"Following extensive guidance and a professional ECB externally funded investigation, it has been determined that North Marine Road would not totally satisfy this criteria, and would therefore have its capacity reduced further to significantly below 2,000. Due to this, The Yorkshire County Cricket Club and Scarborough Cricket Club have taken the difficult decision to move the match to Emerald Headingley."

Mark Arthur, The Yorkshire County Cricket Club’s Chief Executive said: “Firstly we are hugely disappointed to have to make this decision as we truly believed that this fixture would be unaffected.

“We were anticipating over 6,000 spectators each day for what would be a fantastic advert for county cricket. Following the extension of the government’s roadmap, we had hoped that social distancing guidelines would have been eased as the data continued to show encouraging signs.

“After exploring every possible avenue, we had to ensure that as many Members as possible could attend the match. Staging the match at Scarborough under the current restrictions would leave many of our Members disappointed. Therefore, we believe that the fairest and most pragmatic decision was to host the match at a venue that has satisfied safety requirements and can comfortably cater for Yorkshire Members.

“We are extremely sorry to those who now have the added complications around accommodation, but we wanted to ensure that as many Members could attend as possible.”

Ticket purchasers for the match at Scarborough are entitled to a refund or can roll their tickets over to another game later in the season. Tickets are non-transferable for the match at Emerald Headingley, however, supporters will be able to purchase at tickets.yorkshireccc.com/online from Wednesday 7 July. For those who require a refund, details of how to apply will be posted on the Scarborough website during the week commencing 28 June.

Those who have purchased hospitality through Scarborough are able to roll this over to another Yorkshire match at North Marine Road. If you have booked / purchased hospitality and would like a refund or re-book for another game, please contact the Scarborough office week commencing 5 July.

At present, the two Royal London One Day Cup, 50 over friendly and LV= Insurance County Championship fixtures are set to be staged at Scarborough, dependent on the latest government guidance.