OBE for former ECB chief Collier

David Collier, the former chief executive of the ECB, has been awarded an OBE in the Queen's New Year Honours. Collier, who stood down earlier this year after a decade in the post, was the most prominent cricketing figure to be honoured in this year's list.

Other recipients included Ed Davies, chairman of Bishops Cannings Cricket Club near Devizes in Wiltshire, who was awarded a British Empire Medal. Davies founded the club with a group of friends in 1988 and it now boasts four adult sides, six junior teams, a 150-strong membership and a new pavilion, proving that the trend showing reduced participation in recreational cricket can be bucked.

Giles Clarke, the ECB chairman, said: "David's OBE is richly deserved. He provided outstanding leadership for ECB over the last decade; a period which saw record levels of investment in our professional and recreational games, significant growth in women's and disabilities cricket, and major on-field successes for both the England men's and women's teams."

Collier told ESPNcricinfo that "seven or eight counties" could have gone out of business because of one bad summer had the ECB put the game on a more secure footing during his term of office.

He departed, however, as confidenc e was again faltering in English professional cricket with debts among the first-class counties topping £100m and county chairman pressing for a return to some free-to-air coverage after the limited success of the relanched NatWest t20 Blast.

Clarke also had warm words for Davies, reflecting the ECB's anxiety about faltering community involvement in the amateur game. "Volunteers like Ed who devote their spare time to running local cricket clubs are the lifeblood of our recreational game and it's fantastic to see all his hard work on behalf of the club receive national recognition," he said.