Yorkshire CCC boardroom diversity welcomed, just don’t leave Darren Gough isolated - Chris Waters

THIS time next week, Yorkshire’s members will be asked to ratify the appointments to the board of six independent non-executive directors.

The nominees to be presented at the annual meeting are Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson, the former Paralympic athlete; Lucy Amos, head of social media at The Walt Disney Company (UK & EMEA); Leslie Ferrar, a former treasurer to The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall; Nolan Hough, chief commercial officer of CAVU, a global digital business in travel; Yaseen Mohammad, chair of Park Avenue Bradford and a trustee of the Yorkshire Cricket Foundation, and legal expert Kavita Singh.

Having won the right to make key governance changes after 
the racism debacle, the club is about to embark on a new era in terms of its leadership and direction.

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The nominees, fully supported by the existing club hierarchy, will join a board headed by chairman Lord Kamlesh Patel and which includes acting chief executive Paul Hudson, interim managing director of cricket Darren Gough and director Trevor Strain; two member representatives will be ratified shortly, lifting the total number of board members to 12.

Cricket first: Will Darren Gough have enough cricketing expertise around him on the new-look Yorkshire board. (Picture: Getty Images)Cricket first: Will Darren Gough have enough cricketing expertise around him on the new-look Yorkshire board. (Picture: Getty Images)
Cricket first: Will Darren Gough have enough cricketing expertise around him on the new-look Yorkshire board. (Picture: Getty Images)

All well and good, I hear you cry, and this column has no doubt that the nominees will bring great skill and experience from their particular fields.

It is a very transparent attempt to show that the club is trying to be more diverse, inclusive and socially aware after the botched handling of recent events.

You will notice, though, that only one of those on the board thus far is what you might call an out-and-out cricket person (Gough), for all that some of the non-execs may have an interest in the game, have played it in the past/continue to play it and, in the case of Mohammad and Singh, are Yorkshire members too.

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But on the basis that there is a big difference between playing a bit of cricket at school, say, and the world of first-class/county cricket, let alone from the cricketing world to the business world, who on the board in totality will have the cricketing knowledge/current watching experience to be able to discuss Yorkshire cricket effectively and to take key decisions regarding it in the club’s best interests?

Yorkshire's managing director of cricket Darren Gough during the players warm up ahead of day two of during the LV= Insurance County Championship match between Gloucestershire and Yorkshire at Seat Unique Stadium on April 15, 2022 in Bristol. (Picture: Michael Steele/Getty Images)Yorkshire's managing director of cricket Darren Gough during the players warm up ahead of day two of during the LV= Insurance County Championship match between Gloucestershire and Yorkshire at Seat Unique Stadium on April 15, 2022 in Bristol. (Picture: Michael Steele/Getty Images)
Yorkshire's managing director of cricket Darren Gough during the players warm up ahead of day two of during the LV= Insurance County Championship match between Gloucestershire and Yorkshire at Seat Unique Stadium on April 15, 2022 in Bristol. (Picture: Michael Steele/Getty Images)

Who is going to be able to ask meaningful questions of Gough, for example, around the boardroom table, to best challenge and help him in the weeks and months ahead?

Yes, the board will have “the right look”, as it were, a smorgasbord of skills that will undoubtedly help greatly, but for the most part they will be business people with no meaningful experience of cricket or of running a cricket club.

Lucy Amos, for instance, will doubtless bring many attributes from her work with The Walt Disney Company but, as she candidly concedes in the opening paragraph of her candidacy manifesto, “First, straight off the bat (no pun intended), I am not a lifelong cricket fan. I’m not even a year-long cricket fan. In fact, before considering this position I could count the number of matches I had watched on one hand and with fewer than five fingers.”

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Ergo, she is not likely to have a view on Yorkshire’s strategy in the 50-over Cup, or to have an informed take on the myriad reasons why only 5,539 people turned out to watch the Roses game last week. Why should she?

Yorkshire's Steven Patterson with Darren Gough earlier this season (Picture: SWPix.com)Yorkshire's Steven Patterson with Darren Gough earlier this season (Picture: SWPix.com)
Yorkshire's Steven Patterson with Darren Gough earlier this season (Picture: SWPix.com)

Amos will bring a different perspective and skill-set, of course she will, as will Nolan Hough, who grew up in South Africa and whose manifesto confines his observations of Yorkshire/the county to the following: “Yorkshire holds a special place in my heart. It was where my wife Beccy and I spent our first wedding anniversary, and then being a destination of choice for family holidays. We have fond memories of visiting York, rowing, walking and later cycling in the Yorkshire Dales (sometimes in fairly adverse weather), with our two children Charlie and Amelia.”

Great, but Yorkshire County Cricket Club is, at heart, a cricket club as it says in the title. One of the best ways to promote, popularise and protect it is through success on the field backed by a comprehensive internal knowledge of the game.

Yes, the club needs people with a wide range of skills from a wide range of backgrounds/professions, but it also needs “cricket” running through its core like the letters in a stick of seaside rock.

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