Colin Graves is poised for a five-year term as the chairman of the England & Wales Cricket Board "when sweeping changes to the running of the game in this country are proposed next week," according to Nick Hoult of the London TELEGRAPH. A two-day meeting of the 18 county chairmen at a hotel in Northamptonshire "will discuss proposals for Graves to replace Giles Clarke as chairman." The agenda "is also likely to include discussions around the potential for a Twenty20 competition along the lines of the Big Bash in Australia, the selling of cricket content to a free-to-air broadcaster, how much to keep behind a paywall and a cost-cutting review of the ECB’s operations." A source said, "I hope it will be a healthy debate and I would not rule anything in or anything out." The succession of Graves, the multi-millionaire chairman of Yorkshire, "follows months of lobbying to try to avoid a potentially bitter election battle with Clarke." Clarke’s role "will be decided by the board, which allows them a degree of control over how he represents them" at the Int'l Cricket Council (TELEGRAPH, 1/6).
BIG BASH EXPANSION: In Sydney, Nathan Carter wrote former Test all-rounder Andrew McDonald believes that "the Big Bash League could expand to include teams from south-east Asia and New Zealand within the next decade." McDonald, now playing for the Sydney Thunder, said that "introducing teams from New Zealand's North and South Islands would be ideal for New Zealand cricket." McDonald: "It would be great for the Big Bash to expand it, to have an international feel about it, and the other possibility is getting into Asia somewhere, I suppose Singapore with its growth there or Hong Kong or something like that" (SYDNEY MORNING HERALD, 1/7).
