Born and brought up in Kowloon, Reeve, 33, played for Hong Kong with Somerset chief executive Peter Anderson. He will take up his new duties in March.

Reeve will have the assistance of all-rounder Colin Wells, with whom he played at Sussex for 10 seasons, as second team coach. Peter Robinson, who has been with Somerset as player and assistant coach since 1965, becomes director of youth cricket.

David Graveney has backed Graham Gooch as England's next chairman of selectors after being told that he cannot stand for the post himself. Graveney, the paid general secretary of the professional Cricketers' Association, expressed his support for the former England captain when he arrived in Adelaide yesterday as tour manager of the England A party.

The Cricketers' Association have told Graveney that they do not feel he could do both jobs, but they have come out heavily in favour of him remaining a selector. Graveney said: ``Two people who would be a great asset to our international side are Gooch and John Barclay [who managed England in South Africa and at the World Cup]. To the man in the street Gooch would be the right choice because in their eyes he has attained almost heroic qualities.''

But he counselled against Gooch continuing to play for Essex if he is appointed next April. ``I'd be deeply concerned about any current player being a selector. In fact, The Management and the selectors should be two separate functions, as happens in Australia and the West Indies.''

Graveney admitted that he would have liked to stand as chairman and pointed out that the players' vote on the issue was virtually 50-50, ``which certainly was not a strong voice against me.

``But what did disappoint me was that, out of the 18 representatives - one from each county - on the association's committee, only 10 bothered to respond to the question.''