MacLaurin's plea to reform or face consequences

Departing ECB chairman leaves domestic game in a healthy state but warns of perils ahead. Stephen Brenkley speaks to him

Lord MacLaurin has warned that English cricket must be prepared to shed 200 professional players if it is to survive. The departing chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board said his unknown successor must continue revolutionary reform or see the game wither and suffer irreversible damage.

"There is no other way for it,'' he said. "Over the next two years the number of professional players, now in excess of 400, must be drastically reduced to something around 200. That must be done in negotiation with the Professional Cricketers' Association with retainers found for players, but it must be done. Otherwise you will be seeing a very different game. Yes, it may be important to retain 18 first-class counties but if this reform doesn't go ahead then clubs will definitely die.''

It is a harsh and uncomfortable agenda but the uncomfortable truth is that had MacLaurin issued it alternatively as a manifesto for a further term of office he might have lost. The players who have prospered as never before under his stewardship, let alone their clubs, would surely have ganged up against him.

Instead he has decided not to stand again after six years citing lack of time because of his other (paid) business interests, not least being chairman of the currently troubled Vodaphone Group. If there is much justification in his reasoning he is doubtless aware that his forebodings would not have been greeted with universal acceptance.

The search for his successor has the potential to become more frantic. Only now he is going can it be seen what elements the job in its modern form entails. Domestic cricket and its essential reform is a major plank but so are diplomatic relations with the other major cricketing countries, not least the Asian bloc, and the ability to tread easily in the corridors of political power to ensure cricket's end is kept up.

Perhaps MacLaurin's words have more chance of being heeded now he is going. He was characteristically trenchant in his assessment of where the game stands. It is unquestionably at a crossroads. Standing still is not an option.

"Financially, the game is in good health at present,'' he said. "That is partly because of the extension to the television deal we negotiated a year ago which can now be seen to have been vital, and partly because there will be monies from the World Cup next year. But how these are used is of the utmost significance. If they go simply to player wages and keeping them employed then I can tell you we will be talking about a very different game in the near future.''

The television deal of £147 million for four years clinched by the ECB last year can now be seen as a masterstroke. The bottom has since dropped out of that vital market. Only weeks ago rugby union settled for £63m. It is an open secret that once it had expected £150m. It was MacLaurin who unreservedly backed the ECB's executive against some less experienced, more grasping voices who thought there may be more cash some time in the future.

"We don't know what will happen to television rights in the future,'' said MacLaurin. "They may recover, they may not, but what is not in doubt is that we signed our contract at exactly the right time for the good of the game and its players. Now we have to make sure the game adjusts again.''

While denying that he ever tested the water to check his prospects for re-election, MacLaurin is discernibly miffed that the counties have not yet given their blessing to more radical reform in the running of the game. He wanted it to be run on Plc lines with a 12-man board consisting of eight non-executive directors who would be there to provide checks and balances and four executive directors who would be responsible for day to day running and decision-make, reporting twice a year. That, MacLaurin insists, is the only efficient way forward.

"I think the First Class Forum and the counties are seeing that now. I think they realise that they can't go on hiring players whose wages have gone up so much in the last few years. That is only right but the game cannot afford so many of them. It simply can't.''

MacLaurin was elected unopposed on a reform platform six years ago but has not had matters all his own way. Self-interest (if not self-preservation) has driven the counties, though as MacLaurin pointed out that might be self-defeating.

He will stay in office "as busy and hands-on as ever'' until the end of the year and hopes to ensure a smooth handover to his successor. Who that might be (nominations open on Tuesday) is still anybody's guess. The favourite is probably David Morgan of Glamorgan, the present ECB vice-chairman, although Mike Soper, the chairman of Surrey, has insisted he will stand.

Morgan has been kept in the background by MacLaurin's extremely public style, but he is known as a capable fellow. He may not quite possess MacLaurin's reforming zeal. Soper does, but his declared aim to make cricket bigger than football indicates he may direct his energies unwisely. It may be a mystery to some of us but cricket is not the global game that soccer is, it never has been and pretending otherwise is folly.

Both men would lack clout in political circles which cricket needs. Tony Lewis, the former England captain, whose name has been mentioned, may open some doors because of that status alone. But he is reluctant at best. John Major, the former Conservative prime minister and former president of Surrey County Cricket Club, is passionate about the game but he has declared himself a non-runner. Maybe it is something to do with the fees he can earn on the lecture circuit as distinct from the completely voluntary nature of ECB chairmanship, or maybe he is thoroughly tired of the corridors of power.

Other names not known in cricket have been broached in passing . Lord Stephenson of Cobbenham is one. Chairman of the Pearson media group and of Halifax plc, he is a known cricket lover who can also strut the real stuff in Westminster. But he surely has his hands full – unless he sees the ECB as a quango of the kind he has chaired often in the past.

Mention of his name merely shows how desperate the quest for an appropriate successor has become. Whoever it is may be well advised to contact Lord MacLaurin of Knebworth. He was not perfect in every way but he is right on this one.