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You're listening to the TMS podcast from BBC Radio 5 Live.

I'm Jonathan Agnew and welcome to the Test Match Special podcast.

In this episode, we're going to hear from one of the most senior figures in English cricket.

Richard Thompson is the ECB chairman.

We chatted to him in a wide-ranging interview

during the Oval Test about England's year so far, the state of test cricket with talk of two

divisions and four-day games, the lucrative hundred team sales and the county game.

This is the TMS podcast from BBC Radio 5 Live. I think it's important at the start, just to clarify what your position is, because yes, chairman of ECB does mean, therefore, that you are there as our representative, if you like, on the main ICC committee as well, so international cricket, you're up there, representing UK and being very much part of the decision-making process of ICC.

Yes, so whoever is the chair of the ECB automatically becomes an ICC director and represents the country, but the plan is not always the case that you leave your country cap at the door and try and act in the best interest of the whole game, which I genuinely try and do.

I'm also responsible, I think, called the Strategic Growth Committee, which also takes

the Olympics in. So that's an opportunity to try and make some sense of a ridiculously congested

schedule and deal with global growth in a way that as a global game,

we're incredibly dependent on India,

and we need to open up new markets and new opportunities.

So that's an opportunity for me to hopefully shape new income streams

and boost countries that could share real potential to becoming part of the top table.

Yeah.

It's such an interesting situation, isn't it? I mean, on the one hand, it's great that cricket's growing as it is and all these things popping up and sort of the interest in it and the income generated by television and so on. And on the other hand, it's just sort of swamping everything. And this series being a case in point in which here we are by,

well, we haven't got to the end of July yet, and yet we've had seven tests in this country, which is, that's been quite difficult to sustain, isn't it? I mean, they've patched up some of the players, some haven't made it, not least because most of them are knackered. Well, I think it's, I can't, I mean, there'd be a great question, but I can't remember the last time, let's say five tests went five days. I tried that on him earlier on and he failed to come up with the arms. I mean, there are clearly bowlers whose arms are literally falling off. Yeah. And to have to endure, you know, when they're back to back anyway. but I remember back, we were criticised in 2023 during the ashes for cramming the ashes into June and July.

But it worked.

It worked for a number of reasons.

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