Incoming ECB chief executive Tom Harrison to get blueprint for change

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/jan/11/ecb-tom-harrison-giles-clarke

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Tom Harrison, chief executive of the England and Wales Cricket Board, will be given a mandate to develop a new strategic plan for the English game when the county chairmen meet at a Warwickshire conference centre over the next two days.

Harrison, a former ECB marketing executive whose recent employment with IMG involved the negotiation of cricket broadcasting rights, starts his role this month, although he has been party to ECB discussions since his announcement as the successor to David Collier in October.

The meeting, which will be chaired by a professional facilitator rather than the ECB chairman, Giles Clarke, is expected to be strategy-based for the most part with debate concerning a division of the chairman’s role into two distinct parts a side issue.

The proposal is that Clarke should be given a role as the board president which will enable him to continue his work with the International Cricket Council, while a new chairman, almost certainly Yorkshire’s Colin Graves, who is the ECB deputy chairman and who founded the Costcutter chain of supermarkets, will deal with domestic matters. Clarke intends to continue as chairman until May in order to ensure the new chief executive has bedded in.

Speaking to the Guardian, Clarke denied any rift among the board over the issue or that he has been forced out of office by disaffection at a time when research has shown recreational participation in the game has fallen and the national teams at all levels, including women and disability sides, have underperformed. “We have a united board, who have been happy for me to carry on,” Clarke said.

Clarke informed the board in late June of his wish to stand down as chairman following an intensive period that involved the restructuring of the ICC, and the negotiation of ICC broadcasting rights, from his position as the chairman of the ICC finance committee.

“Following the time spent on ICC reforms, I told the [ECB] board that I did not think it possible in terms of time to manage ICC affairs and deal with domestic cricket issues as well, particularly as both roles are unpaid. It was simply too much for one person to handle. We also knew at that stage that David Collier would be leaving his position and so there would be a new chief executive and, as I have been board chairman for eight years, it seemed an appropriate time to step aside.

“But I offered to stay until such a time as was appropriate after his installation. Colin Graves said that he would be very happy to take on the chairman’s position if asked. Splitting the roles is merely falling into line with an international trend that has seen New Zealand, South Africa and Pakistan similarly represented at [the] ICC.”

Graves is likely to be installed unopposed and Clarke’s new position rubber-stamped. The chairman’s position is likely to be for five years, during which time the next round of broadcasting rights will be negotiated. Sky, not unexpectedly, last week announced it has taken up its option of extending its own rights until 2019.

It is here that Harrison’s expertise will come to the fore. He worked for ESPN Star Sports in Singapore before joining IMG in 2011, where he handled its media business in India for two years, including broadcasting deals for the Indian Premier League. Latterly he was IMG’s head of cricket and responsible for IMG’s media business in the UK across all sports and platforms. As well as broadcasting rights, though, he must find a strategy that will re-engage the cricket-playing public, with research amply demonstrating that shorter forms of the game have to be encouraged in an increasingly mobile society.

There is also certain to be discussion on the nature of the Australian Big Bash League and whether such an operation would be successful in this country. Previous business plans for an English Premier League, along such lines, have proved implausible, based as they have been on the proposed sale of broadcasting rights to Indian television, an idea that falls down with the refusal of the Board of Control for Cricket in India to release its own players to participate.