ANDY Nash, former Somerset County Cricket Club chairman and England & Wales Cricket Board (ECB) member, believes that county cricket grounds have a great deal to offer despite seismic changes within the game, writes Joseph Macey.

Nash resigned from the ECB in March of this year, saying he could not tolerate the what he saw as a move to "promote eight counties as the first among equals".

Looking back on that decision, he said: "I left the ECB for two reasons; one was the quality of the corporate governance was severely wanting in my view.

"My view was reinforced when, shortly after I resigned, another board member resigned as well, citing the same weaknesses and specifically the payment to Glamorgan of £2.5 million for not hosting any Test matches.

"That was an extraordinary thing that we knew nothing about until we read it in The Times – terrible.

"My second problem with the ECB is that the current leadership is trying to replicate Cricket Australia in trying to make cricket a very centralised organisation.

"In doing so they are now going to favour the eight Test match grounds to the detriment of the non-Test match grounds.

"That is something I fundamentally disagree with; I think the county grounds have a huge amount to offer to the quality of cricket in England and Wales.

"I had two major areas that I disagreed with, which meant I could no longer carry on at the ECB."

Taunton will not host any matches during the ECB's new city-based competition, the 100, which has divided opinions across the country.

That's despite Somerset bucking the trend for attendances and appetite for the sport.

Nash still looks back on his time at Somerset very fondly, citing Chris Gayle as one of the standout players during his tenure.

He said: "When we signed Chris Gayle in T20, he was probably the leading player in global T20, and when the news that we had signed him came through our website crashed and every game that season was a sell-out.

"I remember one game which was rained off; you might have expected Chris to swan back to his hotel room, but he mixed with all the corporate tables and was very happy to spend time with everybody.

"He was very active charity-wise, and he once went to play a game down for us at Newton Abbott and he ended up serving in the bar; the locals could not believe that Chris Gayle was serving all the drinks.

"They eventually persuaded him to go out and bat, so he went out wearing just one pad, hit three direct 6s from three balls and came back in again."

In terms of Somerset's success, on and off the pitch, Nash said: "We have had a really good cohesive culture, and when you have a really supportive culture, all that coming together you can achieve some really great things.

"The second thing I would say is the finances; you don’t play cricket for money but it is difficult to play cricket if you haven’t got any money, and we had a strong underlying business that produced some strong financial results and so we were able to invest quite heavily in the squad.

"The third thing is that we made a good decision to redevelop the current site instead of relocating, and the fact we have been able to stay in the town centre and redevelop has been an enormous success.

"The ground has increased in capacity over the years, but also the facilities have improved beyond all recognition."

Naturally all good things come to an end, and Nash felt that the end of 2017 was the right time to announce his Somerset departure.

He said: "I had done 10 years as chairman and in good corporate governance that is about the limit, so I knew my time was up.

"I think I had done enough; it is a very demanding position and it occupied an awful lot of time.

"I felt the club was in good shape to hand down to my successor."

Looking to the future of the county cricket, Nash added: "If you play good cricket in an attractive venue, with good facilities for the fans, they will come.

"I think some counties have challenges in that regard; Derby is a football town and they have struggled to sell cricket in the summer.

"And I think Cardiff is similar with Glamorgan – they hardly ever sell out a domestic T20 game, because cricket is number three behind football and rugby.

"We are lucky here that cricket is number one in Somerset.

"T20 has been the gift that keeps on giving, and if the people really get behind that then cricket has the chance to be the number one challenger to football."