Illness causes further to delay to ECB chair appointment

While the process to appoint a successor has been dragging on for months, it has faltered each time it appeared to be close to a conclusion

The process of appointing the ECB chair has been delayed once again due to illness.

The ECB has been without a chair since Ian Watmore stepped down in October. While the process to appoint a successor has been dragging on for months, it has faltered each time it appeared to be close to a conclusion.

On one occasion, the ECB reduced the field to a shortlist of three before deciding none of the candidates were ideal. On another, the likely candidate, Ron Kalifa, withdrew after deciding that his previous role has head of the nominations committee which had been charged with selecting candidates could compromise the integrity of the process.

After that, the ECB launched an entirely fresh process with a new chair of the nominations committee. Now, however, it is understood that a key member of that nominations committee and one of the candidates is unwell. The ECB hope they can resume the process in three weeks.

^{The ECB has been without a permanent chair since Ian Watmore's resignation (Alex Davidson/Getty Images)}

There are three candidates left in the race to be chair. They are Martin Darlow, the interim chair who has served on the ECB board as a voice of recreational cricket, Richard Thompson, the current chair of Surrey, and Alan Dickinson, who is also currently on the board and is a former treasurer of Surrey.

Darlow is seen, in general, as the continuity candidate, with Thompson very much the choice of the counties. Many of them feel that anything but continuity is required at the ECB.

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