ECB chiefs quit in protest at Graves
tHE England Cricket Board are in turmoil after two director resignations in quick succession.
It is understood Surrey’s highly-respected chairman Richard thompson, seen as a future ECB leader, has quit with immediate effect following a meeting of the first-class counties this week.
thompson’s departure in protest at the way the board is being run by chairman Colin Graves follows Somerset’s Andy Nash stepping down earlier in the month for similar reasons.
thompson was due to depart the board in May due to governance reforms but friends say he felt unable to continue on the board under its current leadership.
the final straw for thompson has been the acrimonious fall- out from the ECB awarding Glamorgan a massive £2.5million for no longer hosting test cricket, which never properly worked in Cardiff. the board process around this decision was by no means clear-cut.
Gloucester and Somerset, who also both missed out on a proposed share of a new t20 team that went entirely to Glamorgan, led the angry voices at the county summit.
thompson is also known to oppose the governance changes that will see no county representatives on the ECB board in future.
thompson and Nash, who have both chosen to walk, had the most experience of directorships across a range of businesses on the ECB board.
the crisis at the ECB obviously isn’t on the global scale of Cricket Australia’s ball-tampering scandal. But morale is said to be at an all-time low because counties who are not staging international matches or the new t20 tournament, starting in 2020, believe the ECB are cutting them adrift.
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