Tim Lamb

Tim Lamb, who retired from first-class cricket at 30 after bowling energetic seam-up for Oxford University, Middlesex and Northamptonshire, and appearing in four Lord's cup finals, became best known as an administrator with Middlesex and the ECB, before moving outside cricket to become chief executive of the Sport and Recreation Alliance (formerly the CCPR).

After retiring in 1983, he was appointed secretary and general manager of Middlesex before embarking on a long relationship with the TCCB and its successor the ECB, as cricket secretary and chief executive, a post he secured in 1996 on a manifesto that cricket should be treated as "a business within a game rather than a game within a business".

The mantra caught the mood of the times: during his tenure cricket globally transformed itself in the name of commerce. The board's annual commercial income more than doubled during his tenure. He oversaw the ending of the BBC's 60-year monopoly of England's home Tests; the introduction of a two-division County Championship and central contracts for England players in 2000; the establishment of a National Academy in 2001; and the birth of Twenty20 cricket two years later.

But Lamb had his detractors before he resigned as chief executive in 2004. His handling of the Zimbabwe affair during the 2003 World Cup polarized opinion. He was blamed in some quarters for over-manning his Lord's departments. It was again the question of whether England should tour Zimbabwe in 2004-05 which presaged his departure.

In 2005 Lamb became chief executive of the CCPR, the independent umbrella body and trade association for the national governing and representative bodies of sport and recreation in the UK. There are more than 300 organizations within its membership.
Freddie Wilde