Middlesex are ‘drifting towards irrelevance’ and chairman Richard Sykes must stand down, according to a bombshell open letter to the club’s members from half a dozen of their legendary figures, led by ex-England captain Mike Gatting.
The group of six international cricketers, which also included Mark Ramprakash and West Indies great Desmond Haynes, expressed dismay at the direction of travel. They say they have asked Sykes to stand down at the Annual General Meeting on April 15, and his refusal has led them to go public with their concerns.
They now hope to attract as many members as possible to Lord’s on that date for an open debate in which their concerns – such as the club’s cricket administration, including the managing director of cricket Alan Coleman, completely lacking in first-class experience – will be addressed.
Middlesex are currently operating without a chief executive with Andrew Cornish on ‘a leave of absence’ since November due to a matter that is understood to involve an investigation by the cricket regulator.
MCC seconded its membership director Mahdi Choudhury to the county on a part-time basis at the start of this year as ‘acting chief operating officer and company secretary’.
Financial issues have hit Middlesex hard. They are the only one of the 18 first-class counties yet to sign an overseas player for 2026 and Sam Elliott, the uncapped Australian seamer they have show interest in, was injured during the Sheffield Shield final this week.
With Lord’s – their traditional home, but not an official one – increasingly busy these days, they will play just two Vitality Blast matches there this summer. It adds to the lack of identity. In recent times, Middlesex have even used Essex’s Chelmsford headquarters as a venue to host matches.
On the field, a club that in its heyday between 1976-85 won five County Championship titles, currently languish in Division Two and to get them out of it have turned to Peter Fulton, a New Zealander with no experience of county cricket, as head coach.
The slide since their last Championship pennant 10 years ago was addressed by the sextet, completed by John Emburey, Mike Selvey and Clive Radley, in their correspondence.
‘As former players of Middlesex, we have become increasingly disturbed at the way the club has been allowed to sink to its current level,’ they wrote.
‘Middlesex was once a byword for excellence in the game, a club with a proud history of success and a strong, competitive culture brought about by hard work on and off the pitch.
Former England and Middlesex captain Mike Gatting is among the legendary figures to support a bombshell open letter to the club’s members
It has been a decade since Middlesex last won the County Championship
‘Instead, around the counties the men’s teams now are variously regarded as “a soft touch” and “lacking fight”.
‘The club has been poorly led for too long. Middlesex is first and foremost a cricket club, but the leadership lacks any real cricketing knowledge. Only one person with first-class cricket experience occupies a Board position, while only two such former players appear on any of the club’s committees. The cricket administration is structurally a mess, is devoid of accountability and lacks proper checks and balances.
‘The players are a product of their environment and in areas where the standard of coaching has been poor, the players have not been sufficiently challenged resulting in Inadequate standards becoming the norm, insufficient to compete at the level to which we should aspire.
‘From a grassroots perspective, we’ve been promised many times that there are good, young players coming through.
‘Yet despite having a catchment area that is perhaps the most populous and diverse in the country, the club is consistently failing to convert this talent in the way that other counties, often with less resource, have been able.’
The former players claim they have tried to engage with the club executive for the past 12 months without success, and closed by appealing for a healthy turnout at the AGM, saying: ‘We would strongly encourage members who genuinely want their club to flourish again and not get left behind drifting towards irrelevance, to attend in numbers and seek answers, in an open forum, from those responsible.’
It comes just a week after Lancashire faced similar accusations from a group led by David ‘Bumble’ Lloyd and Paul Allott, highlighting the angst around the county scene as more clubs consider modernising through demutualisation.
Middlesex were contacted for comment.
