``Oh, it'll be much the same show under another name''. Such, I expect, is the reaction to the fact that the last formality has been passed for the conversion of the old three-tiered governance into the new unified body. Supporters and players, the whole wide world of cricket, are mostly disinterested in what goes on behind closed doors at what is loosely dubbed as ``Lord's''. I hope and believe, however, that our cricket may become stronger and better under the auspices of the ECB than it has recently been.

Let us remind ourselves of the background. In 1968 MCC, who since the 18th century had ``reigned but not ruled'', being directly responsible for the Laws of the game, set up three bodies because government had decided to give financial support to sport and could not do so for cricket through what was ``a private club with a public function''.

Thus came the Test and County Cricket Board, the National Cricket Association, to head loosely all other components of the English game, and the Cricket Council. Representatives from these two and also from MCC made up the council as the game's ruling body.

OK in theory, this concept failed when the TCCB, which had all the earning power, voted itself into effective overall control. Its marketing men brought wealth into the game. Yet it was unwieldy, over-large, its interests never clearly defined.

The control of the game from now on will be in the hands of the ECB management board. On this, the first-class and recreational games are equally represented along with respective chairmen of cricket, finance, marketing, the treasurer of MCC and the chairman of the England management committee. The last-named will be responsible for all cricket at international level at home and on tour.

As Christopher Martin-Jenkins informed us yesterday, the ECB chairman, Sir Ian (shortly to become Lord) McLaurin, and the chief executive, Tim Lamb, are making a tour of discovery this winter, taking in all 18 first-class counties, hearing at first hand of their hopes and problems. They will then propose a fixture pattern which will operate from 1999, as the chairman has emphasised to me, unaltered for three years.

The more competitive and positive county cricket is the better the atmosphere in which the highest talents will mature

There will be fresh minds at work in this partnership and old-timers will be relieved to know that the chairman was a very capable cricketer before he became an eminent company chairman. As Lamb's aspirations, he is concerned that the game will not be subservient to business. In other words, the dichotomy must be kept in balance. Patronage can be too dearly bought.

The advantage the ECB will start with is that there is a clear road for the ambitious youngster to follow from bottom to top: from school and every variety of club to the 38 new county boards, themselves staging posts leading to county XIs, major and minor, and conceivably beyond.

While the McLaurin-Lamb duo gets busy, the cricketers within what we must learn to call the FCF will no doubt be weighing up the lessons of the summer of 1996. (FCF stands for First Class Forum; notice the age-old word ``committee'' is avoided.) I trust that they will seriously address the matter of the coaching of county staffs, from teenagers to the capped players. Seminars on a national scale on techniques and also on leadership could be very well worthwhile granted the right direction. Leading clubs in the County Championship might be rewarded with a further increase from the large annual financial surplus.

What I dearly hope is that the new regime will appreciate that it is only the cricket played in the County Championship which will bring about a stronger England. The more competitive and positive county cricket is the better the atmosphere in which the highest talents will mature.

There is a school of thought which disparages county cricket, pointing to small gates and anaemic matches late in the season. Financial rewards need to be further increased, as I say, and as to attendances, though they are very poor nowadays in the major cities they are healthy enough countrywide, especially at festivals. Remember, too, the unquantifiable but vast readership interest. County loyalty has ancient foundations preceding the Test era. It must be kept warm.

I stress these points because the yearning for greater success at Test level has been expressing itself in dangerous ``solutions'', the most fundamental of which is to divide the championship into two parts - nine counties upstairs and nine downstairs, with annual promotion and relegation. Yorkshire and Lancashire, it seems, would be downstairs among the nine whose status would be diminished, their members and supporters arbitrarily depressed. The arguments against are as long as your arm. Opponents are stigmatised as dinosaurs and die-hards. Obviously, I am both.