Lord's final thwarted by Atomic Kitten

Lord's, the fitting and traditional venue for domestic one-day finals, will not host the first final of the new Twenty20 competition following Westminster City Council's decision to refuse the Marylebone Cricket Club the entertainment licence it required to host the event on 19 July. The final will be held at Nottinghamshire's redeveloped Trent Bridge ground instead.

In keeping with the image the England and Wales Cricket Board is attempting to create for this new "all action" 20-over form of the game and in an attempt to attract younger people to cricket, the finals day had been designed to be a fun day out for the family, incorporating two semi-finals, a final and a pop concert. However, it is not the staging of three matches in a day which has deprived "the home of cricket" of holding this event.

Westminster City Council has taken its stance because of the noise that will be generated by the pop band Atomic Kitten when they play a number of their hits during an interval in the day's precedings. The decision by the council was made easier after complaints from local residents when the ECB used a band to entertain spectators during the lunch break of the Lord's Test match against the West Indies in 2000.

The council's decision has upset the MCC, which was hoping to play its part in promoting cricket to a fresh, young audience.

"We are deeply disappointed that the finals will not be staged at Lord's," David Batts, the deputy chief executive of the MCC said, "and feel frustrated about the way in which the decision was reached. We believe that a fundamental review is needed to ensure that future licensing decisions are reached in a far more efficient and equitable manner."

Iain Wilton, the head of communications at Lord's, said Westminster's decision was "bad for cricket, bad for Lord's and bad for the local economy".