Hampshire to become first county with overseas owner

Hampshire will become the first English county cricket club to be owned by an overseas franchise after signing an acquisition agreement with Indian conglomerate GMR Group.

GMR's parent company will initially acquire a majority stake in Hampshire, who number Shane Warne, Kevin Pietersen and Barry Richards among their former star players, with a complete 100% takeover expected in the next two years.

GMR group has a stake in various Twenty-20 leagues, including the Delhi Capitals in the Indian Premier League (IPL) and Women's Premier League (WPL), Dubai Capitals in International League Twenty-20 (ILT20) and Pretoria Capitals in South Africa 20 (SA20).

Pietersen also played for Delhi Capitals (then known as Delhi Daredevils) and played a small role in the deal.

"Kevin takes an ambassadorial role for GMR and we've certainly spoken to him once or twice," Hampshire chair Rod Bransgrove said.

"He's been very interested in the potential for this because he knows the GMR culture, he knows our culture and he knows they're very well suited to each other."

Some of the funds raised from the takeover, believed to be worth Stg 120m ($A232 m), will be directed towards driving down the club's debt and renovating facilities at their home ground, which will stage an Ashes Test in 2027.

"It's going to be business as usual for Hampshire, except with the confidence of having GMR behind us," Bransgrove said. "I think this is a landmark occasion in English cricket.

"We've got work to do. Although we're the newest ground, we're 24 years old now and some bits are beginning to crack a bit. There's work to be done in and around the ground.

"Hopefully with GMR behind us, we'll be able to raise the capital to get that work done much more quickly than we normally would have done."

with PA