Colin Graves says the “opportunity here to change English cricket for the good” enticed him to the role of ECB Chairman.
The Yorkshire Chairman and current ECB Deputy Chairman will succeed Giles Clarke in May, it was confirmed on Tuesday.
Graves has already started to share his ideas about how cricket in England and Wales could be improved, including the possible introduction of an English Premier League Twenty20 tournament to mirror the Indian Premier League and Big Bash League.
Speaking exclusively to ecb.co.uk, he said:“One of the things that enticed me to do it was to say I’ve got an opportunity here to change English cricket for the good and to put it on a different level from where we are now.”
Graves, an entrepreneur from Yorkshire, added: “The main challenge is to get people back watching English cricket on a regular basis.
“I think we’ve got to look at all the opportunities of Twenty20. Can we do it better? How are we doing it now? Fine, it might have got us to where we are, but do we need an English Premier League?
“Look at all the competitions that we’re doing now, the championship, the 50-over competition. Can we improve those? Can we make it better from a viewing point of view and a player’s point of view?
“I’m going to take everyone along with us. This isn’t just about Colin Graves and the execs at the ECB. It’s about giving the public what they want to watch and making sure that we do it properly.”
Graves has been elected on a five-year term rather than the traditional three. His predecessor, Clarke, will become ECB President with his role having a particular focus on working with the International Cricket Council.
While Clarke will concentrate on the global game, Graves is keen to aid English cricket at all levels, including giving recreational cricket much of the help that the professional game enjoys.
“I think recreation has been left behind. I think it’s been left on its own,” he explained.
“There’s a lot of things that we can get advantages of, running the two side-by-side and together, and that’s one of the things that we are changing already.
“We need to pull that back in, Minor Counties, all those sort of things, and get everybody back involved with cricket.”