It is some time since Leicestershire were described as trailblazers, but by appointing Wasim Khan as English cricket’s first non-white chief executive, the whipping boys of the county game have made a statement that will be welcomed well beyond Grace Road.
Wasim, a 43-year-old from Birmingham who had a first-class playing career with three counties lasting seven seasons, was anxious to stress in a range of interviews that he has been given the job on merit, and his ethnicity has not been a relevant factor in that process.
But he is convinced, after almost a decade leading the Cricket Foundation’s Chance to Shine initiative aiming at reintroducing the game to state schools, there is considerable untapped potential for county cricket in engaging more enthusiastically with British Asians. His appointment, as with that of Lisa Pursehouse who remains county cricket’s only female chief executive after her promotion by Nottinghamshire in March 2012, can only be seen as a step in the right direction.
“I’ve read some articles about Leicestershire pinning their hopes on the Asian community but in a way that’s a bit disrespectful to what I’ve achieved with the Cricket Foundation in recent years,” Wasim told The Guardian. “They carried out a pretty robust three-month recruitment process. Hopefully people will realise I’m getting the job on merit.
“It’s a great opportunity for me to get back into professional cricket but also hopefully I can become a bit of a trailblazer for other south Asians in administration. I acknowledge that is an issue and something people are going to want to talk about but I don’t want to make too much of it.”
He added: “I’ve got a big job ahead of me, and I’m pretty focused on Leicester. The coming years will present a great opportunity to turn things around. There is lots of passion at the club, hopefully what I can do is provide some direction and leadership.”
Wasim’s CV includes an MBE for services to cricket and the community awarded last year in recognition of his work since 2005 with the Cricket Foundation, especially in the development of the Chance to Shine programme, which has become one of the English game’s most successful and admired initiatives.
He was recommended for that role by Mervyn King, the former director of the Bank of England, and the former Hampshire captain Mark Nicholas, who was then working for Channel 4. Less than a decade later more than £50m has been raised and more than 2.5 million children in 11,000 state schools have been involved in cricket through Chance to Shine, including over one million girls.
His appointment will therefore be seen as a significant line in the sand for a Leicestershire club who have become a basket case in recent seasons, the first county to go through two entire summers without winning a Championship match since Northamptonshire in the 1930s.
They have continued to develop players in decent numbers in recent years but have been unable to keep them at Grace Road. Stuart Broad, James Taylor and Harry Gurney have made the short move to Nottinghamshire, and the trickle turned to a flood in the dog days of 2014 as Nathan Buck, Greg Smith, Shiv Thakor and the captain, Josh Cobb, moved on. Tom Moores, the wicketkeeping son of the England coach Peter, has also left for Trent Bridge.
Wasim is hopeful the appointment of a new coach later this week following the departure of the long-serving director of cricket Phil Whitticase – expected to be Andrew McDonald, an Australian who played for the club in happier times – will provide overdue reason for optimism on the field.
“I’m certainly hoping things change very quickly at the club in terms of wins, but for me it’s about laying the foundations for sustained success,” he said. “That’s what impressed me during the interview process, there is a brutal honesty among the board of directors about the need to make major changes.
“When we started Chance to Shine lots of people said it couldn’t work. Similarly, some people have been negative when I’ve asked them whether I should come to Leicester. But that’s what excites me. I could probably have gone to a job at a Test ground but what difference could I really make? Here at Leicester there’s a real chance to achieve something.”
