England And Wales Cricket Board

Durham were stripped of Test status and demoted to Division Two of the County Championship in October 2016 as part of a raft of unprecedented sanctions for accepting a £3.8million bailout from the ECB.

While Durham are back in Division One this season, captain Scott Borthwick said last year there remains some bitterness towards the ECB from a lot of people at the club at how the situation was handled.

But Bostock thinks relations, at least at hierarchical level, thawed some time ago and he argued Durham being awarded one of the eight professionalised women’s teams last week is a telling indicator of that.

“I was always focused on fixing what was in front of me and rebuilding relationships everywhere but particularly with the ECB,” Bostock, who joined Durham in July 2018, told the PA news agency.

“No matter what, if you’re going to war with your governing body, who are your main funders and your main decision-makers, you’re not going to get anywhere and that’s the same in any walk of life.

“Our focus was on rebuilding our reputation and by doing that we got a place at the top table again, which meant we were in a position to influence in a positive way future decisions.

“During the last period, the ECB has been very supportive of Durham. This isn’t the first time they’ve demonstrated it but this is the most visible way the ECB has demonstrated that the past is behind us.”

The current women’s regional structure is being replaced next year as teams have been aligned with Durham, Essex, Hampshire, Lancashire, Nottinghamshire, Somerset, Surrey and Warwickshire.

Bostock believes one of the biggest selling points in Durham’s pitch as they edged out rival bids from the likes of Yorkshire was that all their home games would be played at the Seat Unique Riverside.

“The stability of the club is one thing and our vision for the future,” Bostock said. “Reputation-wise, we took a bit of a hit a few years ago but we’ve managed to rebuild that.

“All of our games will be played at the main ground, an international ground and giving the women the stage to demonstrate what they can do and not have to play on outgrounds.

“There will be the same effort and expertise going into making the women the best they can possibly be as what goes into the men. That is absolutely right.”

The decision seemingly boosts Durham’s prospects of being involved in The Hundred from next year, with the ECB contemplating expanding the tournament from eight to 10 teams and pursuing private investment.

One of the proposals under consideration and said to be favoured by the ECB is giving host counties 51 per cent of equity in their team that they could then sell off to receive a significant windfall.

Indeed, the financial assistance could go a long way to paying off a £27million hotel complex at Durham’s ground, currently in the planning stage, which Bostock estimates will be a “game-changer” for the county, quadrupling profits and doubling turnover.

“There’s no doubt having a professional women’s team helps with aspirations for a team in The Hundred,” Bostock added.

“It’s critical we get a Hundred team here. Financially it’s going to be a massive boon. The difference between The Hundred teams and non-Hundred teams financially is going to be like chalk and cheese.

“The proposed sell-off of the teams is a significant amount of money. It would put the club on a really, really strong financial footing which then goes all the way back into the development of cricket with the men and women, it all mushrooms from there.”

According to reports, Cameron will be seeking nominations for the post but is yet to make a request that the CWI support his bid.

It is not certain if the CWI would support a bid from Cameron either after the former boss and the man who ousted him, Ricky Skerritt, had very public differences, not just during their election campaigns, but recently.

Skerritt investigated Cameron’s tenure as president by way of an audit where there were a number of questions regarding accounting practices of the organization.

CWI vice president, Dr Kishore Shallow has not commented on whether or not the CWI would back such a bid, saying he wanted to wait to discuss it with the board upon the occasion of receiving a formal notice on the matter.

ICC Chairman, Shashank Manohar, will leave the post when his term ends this year with the ICC slated to discuss the election of a new boss in the very near future.

At the moment, frontrunner to fill the spot being left vacant by Manohar is England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) chief, Colin Graves.

Graves was expected to be elected unopposed when he steps down from his five-year sojourn at the helm of the ECB in August.

Cameron was president of the CWI from 2013-2019.

There have been two seasons of the eight-team tournament, with a third due to get under way in August, but it continues to divide opinion and attract debate.

The Hundred was effectively ring-fenced and spared scrutiny during the high-performance review of English cricket helmed by Sir Andrew Strauss last year, but with several of its key recommendations discarded the Daily Mail and The Cricketer have reported that the governing body is now ready to put it back on the table. The ECB has been approached for comment.

Reverting to the T20 format and a two-division structure with promotion and relegation is one suggestion, but any changes are unlikely to come quickly. While contracts associated to the competition, from players to backroom staff, typically run year to year and could be unpicked with relative ease, the ECB’s current broadcast deal with Sky runs to 2028 while the BBC’s existing free-to-air arrangement covers at least the next two editions.

It is perhaps relevant that the ECB is currently led by chief executive Richard Gould and chair Richard Thompson. The pair held matching roles at Surrey when The Hundred was first under mooted, with the club forthright in their opposition during their tenure.

Gould has publicly reversed his stance since taking over at the ECB, declaring the 100-ball tournament “a significant success” and predicting it would have “a long future”.

Opinions on The Hundred remain mixed. The elevation of the women’s game has been an unvarnished success, while there is evidence that the scheduling, marketing and ticket pricing have helped attract new fans and a broader demographic to cricket grounds.

But the financial situation is disputed. A report from Worcestershire chair Fanos Hira, a chartered accountant, attaches a £9million loss to the first two seasons but the ECB argues that it turned a profit of £11.8m.

The Hundred has been granted a clear window at the height of summer, taking place throughout August in the immediate aftermath of the Ashes, but appears unlikely to be granted the same luxury in 2024.

 With the West Indies U19 team being unavailable to tour England during the proposed window, CWI and the ECB have worked together to investigate all alternative scheduling options but unfortunately, it has not been possible to find a time for the tour that would work for both Boards in relation to the respective domestic tournaments and player availability.

 The scheduled programme had included one IT20, three ODIs and two Youth Tests against England U19s, which had been set to run between 16 August and 3 September 2020.

 As the current environment makes it impractical to plan to host alternative opposition, the decision has had to be taken not to run a competitive England U19 programme this summer.

 “CWI and the ECB have agreed to cancel a proposed U19 tour of the UK due to scheduling issues. The situation is an unfortunate one as we had planned for the tour to be the end of a two-year development cycle for this group of U19 players,” said CWI Director of Cricket Jimmy Adams.

 “This tour to the UK added to the recent World Cup in January, and the tri-series that we hosted in Dec of last year would have given this cohort an excellent competitive component to cap their 2-year U19 program.

 “That said, we will continue to follow up on the cohort, especially those not contracted to franchises, through our Emerging Player program, which has so far facilitated many of our upcoming players who fall in the 19-23 category. Thankfully, while the tour to the UK will not proceeds this year, the ECB are committed to hosting our U19s at a mutually convenient time in the future.”

 Mo Bobat, ECB Performance Director said cancelling the summer programme for their U19 side was not an easy decision to take.

 “But with it not having been possible to identify a window for the tour that works for both Boards - and in the current climate - it is certainly the most appropriate step,” he said.

 “Our young players benefit greatly from these competitive matches against their peers from around the world, not just in preparation for the biennial U19 World Cups, but also to prepare them for the rigours of international cricket.

 “The squad learned a lot from their tri-series in Antigua in December 2019, so we look forward to welcoming the West Indians back to the UK in the future.”