Richard Thompson lays out masterplan to take cricket to the subsequent degree

Richard Thompson displays on a seismic first full yr as chairman of the ECB with all of the vitality and enthusiasm that has made him the main administrator in English cricket.

‘I’m assured we have momentum,’ says the person charged with guiding the sport by way of a contemporary minefield of conflicting pursuits.

‘For me this job is about empowering the sport – the counties, stakeholders and giving gamers confidence in what they’re doing whereas ensuring we benefit from this second for cricket. It’s the quickest rising crew sport on this planet and we have to replicate that.

‘We must be as formidable as attainable and set ourselves actually excessive targets. Things that may stretch us. But we should always remember what’s essential. It’s a rare sport – a nationwide asset like no different We are solely custodians of it and the accountability of being ECB chairman is large as a result of you realize the impression cricket has on folks’s lives.’

It has been, even by cricket’s ever dramatic requirements, a momentous 2023. From the large excessive of an epic Ashes, for each women and men, to a massively disappointing males’s World Cup and the determined off-field low of Thompson apologising on behalf of English cricket for racism discovered to be traditionally entrenched within the sport.

Throughout all of it the person who did a lot to create the Surrey juggernaut throughout his 12 years as chairman on the Oval has been on the forefront of English cricket’s balancing act.

Not solely between the pursuits of the counties and the nationwide crew however now from the ever-growing menace of franchises to the primacy of the worldwide sport. And the fragile puzzle of the place the ECB’s innovation the Hundred matches in to all of it.

Thompson, 56, sat down with Mail Sport to look each again on what has been achieved up to now in his 15-month spell on the helm and ahead to what comes subsequent.

‘I noticed on BBC Sounds the opposite day that of the 25 prime downloaded clips of the yr 24 of them had been Ashes protection which is extraordinary,’ stated Thompson. ‘It exhibits the ability and attraction of our sport.

‘I do know there was criticism of holding the Ashes in June and July nevertheless it proved after we have not obtained soccer suffocating us we are able to personal the summer time and also you’d have to have lived in a cave to not know the women and men had been enjoying in an Ashes collection throughout these two months. It did really feel like 2005 another time.

‘We managed to take the general public with us and although we did not win it was a outstanding collection and we had been privileged to be a part of it. It was boy’s personal stuff to return from two down to attract and if it wasn’t for the climate at Old Trafford most likely win it.’

The giddiness of the Ashes and what Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum have delivered to the Test crew was in whole distinction to the findings of the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket. It made, says Thompson, for ‘deeply uncomfortable’ studying.

‘We needed to ship the ICEC report and that was clearly a really huge second,’ he says. ‘Hopefully we navigated that properly, however have some approach to go to carry in regards to the adjustments known as for within the report – however we’re dedicated to that change. We’ve obtained just about a brand new board and govt and people issues take some time. 

‘Working once more with Richard Gould (ECB CEO) I really feel now the management on the ECB will make a really huge distinction on the place we need to take the sport. And do issues properly and correctly to turn out to be the nation’s most inclusive crew sport. That’s so essential.’

Doing issues properly and correctly will embrace, in 2024, deciding on the way forward for the competitors that continues to divide opinion inside cricket like no different. Thompson, an enormous critic of the Hundred whereas on the Oval, now considers it integral to the way forward for the sport.

‘There are 14 home competitions all over the world which has trebled over the previous couple of years and now we have to have the subsequent largest one after the IPL,’ insists Thompson. ‘Or we shall be staring down the barrel at a lack of earnings we won’t discover another means of changing.

‘Perhaps folks do not realise that one of many largest causes for bringing within the Hundred was that we rely a lot on bi-lateral worldwide cricket for our earnings and there’ll solely be much less of that in future with the rise of increasingly more home competitions and the introduction of a World Cup yearly. England wants a world-class home competitors.

‘I do know I’ve historical past with the Hundred and I suppose I used to be involved it will cannibalise the T20 Blast,’ says Thompson.

‘And when you take away Blast earnings from the vast majority of counties you’d put them out of enterprise tomorrow. This yr we put much more effort and vitality into the Blast and it was most likely probably the most profitable tournaments we have had.

‘We discovered a means the place we are able to ship the Hundred with out cannibalising the Blast. The newly fashioned PGC and RGC have made an enormous distinction having the delegated authority to plan the home schedule amongst different areas of our sport.’

The Hundred, Thompson confirms, will solely get larger. ‘I’ve made it clear I really feel the governing physique shouldn’t promote the entire event since you’re promoting summer time however we’re methods to monetise the groups,’ he admitted.

‘We’re working actually intently on this with the counties to have a look at methods we are able to co-own the groups and the way we are able to generate vital capital that may be reinvested into the sport. That second is now and after subsequent yr the Hundred may look fairly completely different.

‘The advantages of the Hundred financially shall be felt by the entire sport and that may make a profound distinction and can underpin that steadiness between pink and white ball.’

But will it stay a novel format? Mail Sport reported in April that the Hundred may return to the unique intention of an elite T20 competitors, not less than on the finish of the present broadcasting cope with Sky in 2028.

Thompson is non-committal. ‘There aren’t any plans to alter the format within the brief to medium time period,’ he says.

The drawback, as ever, is the place every part matches in. ‘We must discover a higher construction,’ says Thompson. ‘But I would not need to speculate on what’s going to give.

‘I might moderately we did not scale back the quantity of T20 and red-ball cricket. It’s an actual problem to proceed with the quantity now we have and we do have an obligation of care to our gamers. They play greater than another nation.’

That problem can have a knock-on impact, detractors of the Hundred consider, on the way forward for the 18-county system. It isn’t any secret many counties are struggling financially and Mail Sport reported this month that the ECB are having to assist Yorkshire for one. Thompson, an enormous champion of the counties, gives assist but additionally a warning.

‘We’re very conscious quite a few counties have struggled however fortunately we have had a very huge yr and have been capable of present monetary assist to them which we are going to all the time attempt to do,’ he says. ‘But they must be solvent for us to have the ability to try this.

‘We don’t desire any counties to go bust and we are going to do every part we are able to to assist them. When counties have challenges we are going to all the time go to assist them and underneath my watch that may positively be the case.

‘But we won’t assure a county’s survival with the ECB because the financial institution of final resort. We’ve obtained to seek out methods we are able to assist and assist counties and discover new income streams so that enables cricket to prosper and be related wherever it is performed.’

This partaking character stays adamant the long run is shiny. Multi-year central-contracts have been launched to stave off the specter of the franchises and Thompson is adamant main gamers will proceed to need to play for his or her nation.

‘The bar has been set excessive,’ provides Thompson. ‘A complete of three.1 million folks watched cricket this yr which is a document in a non-World Cup summer time and ticket gross sales for subsequent yr’s Tests towards Sri Lanka and West Indies have gone by way of the roof. A girls’s worldwide has bought out already which has by no means occurred earlier than.’

In 2024 we have a mouth-watering Test collection in India and a T20 World Cup to retain. You think about it is not an Ashes summer time however you then suppose truly there’s a lot happening. We’ve obtained wind in our sails and goodwill too. We have to preserve that going by doing easy issues properly and having the ambition and intent to take the sport to the subsequent degree. We’re going to again ourselves and consider within the energy of this nice sport.’