Cricket lover Harry Chathli relishing prospect of "dream job" as Yorkshire CCC chair

“I just love the game,” says Chathli, the Yorkshire chairman-elect. “I’ve lived and breathed it since I was very young.

“I was born in India and grew up in Bombay, which is now Mumbai, of course, and the first birthday present you recall is a cricket bat; then you go out and start playing on the street.

“We lived in a colony of my father’s work, so there was a group of buildings and there was a green space in between and cricket was being played, cricket and badminton. Those were the two games that people used to play.

“That’s how I started life, on that green pitch, or, if other people were playing there, you moved on to the concrete bits.

“That was it: you played with one pad and one bat. I remember using batting gloves to keep wicket with; it was such a fun time.”

Chathli, 58, came to England in 1980. His father was a senior figure at the Life Insurance Corporation of India and was transferred to the company’s London office.

“My first memories of watching cricket were after I pestered my dad to take me to see Tony Lewis when he brought his England side over to India in 1972-73.

“Anyway, he got bowled out first ball and I missed it and cried, apparently. Abid Ali bowled him out and I missed it completely.

“Tony Greig scored a century, I think, and I enjoyed watching the spinners. At that time, the spinners were the big thing in India.”

Chathli’s recall is bang on the button.

It was the fifth and final Test of the series that he watched in Bombay, where Lewis was bowled for a duck and Greig made 148, sharing in a then England Test record fifth-wicket stand of 254 with Keith Fletcher, who hit 113.

The match was drawn, as was the preceding fixture in Kanpur, after England won the first Test in Delhi on Christmas Day before Ajit Wadekar’s India hit back to win the next two matches in Calcutta and Madras, thereby taking the series 2-1.

Chathli reminisces about cricket in a stream-of-consciousness way, the engaging recollections flying hither and thither.

Different eras come back to him and are re-lived with infectious enthusiasm, jumping from the first Test he saw at Headingley, for instance, in 2000 (England’s two-day victory against West Indies) to the great West Indies side of the 1970s, and then on to the wonderful all-rounders of the following decade.

“All-rounders have to be my great heroes. Back then, you had Kapil Dev, Ian Botham, Richard Hadlee, Imran Khan; we all wanted to be like those great all-rounders.

“Even people who didn’t play Test cricket like Clive Rice (owing to South Africa’s international isolation). People forget what a magnificent player he was.”

Chathli sounds as though he could talk for hours as he travels down memory lane; his love and knowledge of the sport is sure to be of particular value to a Yorkshire board perhaps not top-heavy with such characteristics.

In the wake of events that require no elucidation, and in common with an increasing trend across sport administration, the board has a range of diverse and complementary skill-sets - fashioned, in its case, out of desperate crisis and the need to put Yorkshire back together in more ways than one.

However, Chathli maintains: “In my conversations, the board have definitely displayed a knowledge of cricket, and there are two things to consider.

“First, you have to be a fan of cricket to want to come in and do that (join the board) in the first place and, second, the most important thing for what Yorkshire was going through at that time was that they had to be a fan of what cricket could do as well.

“That, to me, is extremely important. There are some wonderful, talented, motivated people on the board.”

There remains the small matter of Chathli’s appointment to said board to be rubber-stamped – initially as a non-executive director before the board can then elect him chair under club rules.

An EGM will be convened to ratify matters at a date to be determined, with a two-thirds majority necessary to vote in a man who would succeed interim chair Tanni Grey-Thompson and replace as the new permanent chair, as it were, Lord Kamlesh Patel, who stepped down in March.

“Of course, I’m not on the board yet and there’s a process that needs to be followed and which has to be respected.

“My approach, however, would be one of dialogue: I want to get to know the members, and the more time I get to spend talking to the members, the better. I want there to be interaction between the members and the club.

“You need to give members an avenue to talk to us (the board). We can’t just sit there and decide things among ourselves. We are a members’ club at the end of the day.”

Chathli, an experienced international capital markets expert by trade, and founder of two successful communications agencies, will bring various attributes in addition to his cricketing expertise.

He is well-regarded in business and acutely aware of the club’s financial challenges; at the same time, he has made no secret of his desire to put the focus firmly back on cricket after so much off-field turmoil.

A useful club batsman and wicketkeeper in his day, who used to “bowl a bit before my shoulder went”, Chathli has a direct family connection to the sport in the shape of his daughter, Kira, who plays for Surrey, the South-East Stars and Oval Invincibles.

He is immensely proud of her and also son Harry, who played county age-group cricket before opting to pursue a different career path.

“I’m enormously proud of both my kids. Harry still plays club cricket and to a high standard, but Kira wanted to take it a lot more seriously and move through the various different steps, and I’m absolutely proud of what she’s achieved. It’s certainly nothing whatsoever to do with me.

“I played for various clubs in south London and enjoyed it a lot, but Harry and Kira, the shots that they play… they are technically gifted, whereas I was much more of a hit-and-hope type of player.”

What attracted Chathli - a Surrey man with whom the rivalry with Yorkshire has long been deep - to apply to take on the role at Headingley?

After the last two permanent chairman, Patel and Roger Hutton, were somewhat less than successful, to put it mildly, he is not exactly following in the footsteps of a Brian Clough and Sir Alex Ferguson, so has little to lose, perhaps, and plenty to gain.

“Basically, it was advertised and I applied for it. It was a very thorough process, which I would expect for such an important position.

“I have friends in Yorkshire who thought that I should be applying, because they hear me talk ad nauseam about cricket. They all said ‘apply’, so that’s what I did.”

Yorkshire said they had “dozens” of applicants before drawing up a shortlist of six, which was then halved.

It would seem that the board itself recognised that cricketing nous was an integral factor, something to add to an eclectic mix.

“The conversation I had (with the club) was about cricket, and knowledge about cricket, and I think that’s very important with this role.

“Also, my own personal experiences of my children going through the county age-group systems, and then my daughter becoming a representative cricketer… the experiences I’ve had and the way that I’ve seen the game move ahead and my thoughts, ideas, etc, obviously resonated with the board.

“This is a dream job, and I really do mean that. Headingley and Yorkshire have a special place in my heart, and I feel truly honoured to be nominated by the board.”

And with that, Chathli is off again, thoughts drifting back to that two-day Headingley Test against West Indies.

“Craig White, Darren Gough and Andy Caddick were in the wickets, I think,” (they were... White took five in the first innings and Gough three, before Gough claimed four in the second and Caddick five).

“Michael Vaughan scored 70-odd, I seem to remember (that’s right, 76) and got man-of-the-match too, I think (spot on again).

“As with Clive Rice, people forget about Craig White, but what a fine all-rounder and good contributor he was to Yorkshire and English cricket.”

Harry Chathli – cricket lover.