County bosses called to domestic structure summit

By Paul Bolton

Senior officials of the England and Wales Cricket Board and a group of county chief executives will meet in London next week in an attempt to finally break the deadlock over the future structure of county cricket.

Gordon Hollins, the ECB’s director of the professional Game, and Alan Fordham, the board’s head of cricket operations, will meet with five chief executives in an attempt to thrash out a workable domestic structure for next year.

The meeting suggests that the controversial recommendations of former International Cricket Council president David Morgan, which include reducing the County Championship to 14 matches per county, are unlikely to be ever implemented.

The ECB bowed to pressure from counties, players and coaches in March when they decided to defer a decision on Morgan’s recommendations to allow consumer research to be carried out during this season. The compilation of the research has yet to start and the ECB has now asked the counties to help them produce a consumer-friendly county season.

Counties have been invited to submit their thoughts to Alan Hamer (Glamorgan), Richard Gould (Surrey), David East (Essex), Dave Brooks (Sussex) and Colin Povey (Warwickshire) who will represent them at the meeting with Hollins and Fordham on May 17.

Next season will be even more congested as the final ICC Champions Trophy will be staged in England with matches played at Cardiff, The Oval and Edgbaston, which is likely to host the final on June 23.


Date: 10/05/2012 09:48:21 by Paul Bolton
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