By Charles Randall

20 March 2014

Simon Dyson, the former Wimbledon CC and Cheshire leg-spinner, has been nominated as one of three candidates to fill the vacancy on the ECB management board left by the imminent retirement of Bob Jackson MBE.

The loss of Jackson after 17 years will create a void in club cricket, as he served with distinction as one of two ECB board directors appointed by the recreational assembly. The ECB received nominations for Dyson, Mike Williams and Jim Wood, and a ballot is to be held among the chairmen of the 39 county boards and the chairman of the recreational assembly.

Dyson, 66, a Surrey Board director, MCC committee member, trustee of the Cricket Foundation and former chief executive, was proposed by Middlesex and seconded by Essex and Kent. Williams was proposed by Worcestershire and seconded by Shropshire and Staffordshire. Wood was proposed by Cumbria and seconded by Bedfordshire and Norfolk.

The ECB chairman Giles Clarke paid tribute to Jackson. "Since he first joined ECB as a founding member of our Board in 1997," he said, "Bob has been a great champion of the recreational game and, with the tremendous support of his wife Maureen, has given over 30 years of yeoman service to cricket in the North-East."

"He is also someone who cares passionately about county cricket and as a former chairman of Durham County Cricket Club, he can reflect with great pride on the huge strides forward the club has taken in the last two decades. On behalf of all my fellow ECB board directors I would like to offer our sincere thanks for his outstanding contribution, and, as a dedicated advocate of the recreational game, he now has the immense pleasure of seeing the large investments in recreational cricket bearing fruit."

ECB announced that Middlesex's chairman Ian Lovett had been re-elected to the ECB board for a further three-year term as one of four directors appointed by the chairmen of the 18 first class counties.