Whether they improve the performance of England's team will depend largely on the calibre of the men who fill the key roles. It is no surprise that the formation of a working party has led to the setting up of yet another committee.
The main suggestions are that a new, nine-man committee should run all aspects of the England team; that there should be no vote on England selection for the coach (a position sure to go to David Lloyd for the next two years); that England players should not be directly contracted to the Board; and that the chairman of selectors should have a binding right to rest players from county matches.
This is the only matter likely to be contentious but it would be a rejection of one central premise for the report -that England players are grossly overworked compared with their overseas rivals - if the Board were to reject the chairman's right to rest players. They did so only last March, deciding to give county chairmen final discretion when the England manager or coach felt a player was tired.
Such requests were accepted in several cases between the second and third Tests against India, controversially so only in the case of Graeme Hick. In practice, players should not miss many more county games than they already do, but the figures studied by the working party provided irrefutable proof of the need to look after leading players better in terms of rest and recuperation: Mike Atherton, Dominic Cork and Jack Russell played respectively 241, 239 and 232 days of competitive cricket between April 1, 1995, and March 31, 1996, compared with 135, 129 and 127 played by their Australian counterparts Mark Taylor, Glenn McGrath and Ian Healy.
The main change to the way England's affairs will be run from next year is the setting up of an England Management Committee
The seven-man working party were chaired by David Acfield, the Board's chairman of cricket, and also included the former England manager and now director of youth development, Micky Stewart; the Lancashire chairman and former tour manager, Bob Bennett; two former England captains, Mike Gatting and David Gower; the chief executive designate of the TCCB, Tim Lamb; and the Board's public relations manager, Richard Little, who sifted research into expert opinion in England and into the way national teams are run in other Test-playing countries.
The main change to the way England's affairs will be run from next year is the setting up of an England Management Committee suspiciously like the one chaired by Ted Dexter until his resignation in 1993.
This will have six ``core'' members: an EMC chairman; the chairman and chief executive of the Board; the chairman of the Board's cricket committee; and two men of long Test experience like Gatting or Graham Gooch, elected by the members of the Board.
The other three members of the committee will be the chairmen, each appointed by the core six, of three sub-committees responsible for selection, the development of young players and overseas tours.
The danger with this proposed new England committee is that it merely sets up yet another layer of management
If the EMC were to come into being tomorrow, their core members would consist, therefore, of Dennis Silk, A C Smith, Acfield and three elected members - one being the chairman - plus Ray Illingworth, M J K Smith, chairman of the development committee, and Doug Insole, chairman of the overseas committee.
In view of the familiarity of those names - although Silk and Smith will drop out when the English Cricket Board replaces the TCCB - it would be imperative for the Board to come up with younger men and fresh minds.
It was a problem for Acfield and his team that they were operating in advance of the other working party, David Morgan's, who are reporting in September with the plan for a new, less unwieldly national Board.
The danger with this proposed new England committee is that it merely sets up yet another layer of management, but Acfield does not agree. ``It will tie together the present untidy arrangements and although we have allowed for a measure of democracy in deciding those who sit on the EMC, their main reponsibility will be to appoint professionals to get on with the job.''
The working party also recommend that the present England hierarchy of a chairman of selectors, coach and captain should be preferred to the supremo role which Illingworth held for one year. They do not, however, advocate the coach voting on the selection panel.
The panel would consist, instead, of the chairman, appointed for two years by EMC core members and salaried; two other selectors, who would be appointed jointly by the six core members and the chairman; and the captain, appointed by the other three selectors. Only the chairman of the Board could veto the choice of captain, and that only in exceptional circumstances.
The report stresses that ``by standing slightly apart from the final team selection, [the coach] would have a little more room for manoeuvre whilst still having a major input''. This is likely to diminish Lloyd's influence on Test selection, although there should be little argument for at least as long as he and Atherton are coach and captain.