Tom Harrison resigns as ECB chief executive amid English cricket shake-up

Tom Harrison has resigned from his role as chief executive of the England and Wales Cricket Board in yet another major change of personnel at the top of the English game.

Harrison’s decision comes after the recent resignations of England’s director of cricket, head coach, assistant coach and captain. The ECB is aleady searching for a new chairman after Ian Watmore stood down last year (his interim replacement, Barry O’Brien, recently resigned too due to health problems), and will now begin the process of identifying a new CEO to shape its future.

The ECB’s managing director of women’s cricket, Clare Connor, has been installed as Harrison’s interim replacement.

Harrison was appointed in 2014 but has come under increasing pressure in recent months. He came under fire for his determination to push through the Hundred, a new cricketing format which turned out to be a surprise success, and then for scooping a lucrative bonus pot from the project in the wake of severe cuts to the ECB’s workforce during the pandemic. He was also criticised for the ECB’s limp response to the Yorkshire racism scandal.

England begin a three-Test series against New Zealand next month with new captain Ben Stokes at the helm. While Stokes was the obvious choice to replace Joe Root, who stepped down following a dismal streak of results, there have been inexperienced appointments above him with forme batsman turned pundit Rob Key installed as the new director of cricket, and former New Zealand captain Brendan McCullum named as the surprise head coach of the Test team.

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