Photo Credit: Marylebone Cricket Club
MARK NICHOLAS HAS BEEN NAMED AS THE NEXT PRESIDENT OF MCC.
He will serve a 12-month term as President, taking up the post on 1 October 2023. His appointment was announced by the current President, Stephen Fry, at the Club’s Annual General Meeting held earlier today.
Mark, who was elected as a Member of MCC in 1981, is one of the most recognisable figures in televised cricket, leading coverage at the very top of the game across the world.
He moved into the media following his retirement as a cricketer when he played as a top-order batter and medium-pace bowler for Hampshire and captained England A.
Mark scored over 25,000 runs – including an unbeaten hundred for MCC at Lord’s against the 1985 Australians – and took 173 wickets in a professional career spanning over two decades. He also captained Hampshire to four major trophies, three of which came in finals at Lord’s.
As a broadcaster, Mark anchored Channel 4’s acclaimed Test match coverage which began in 1999, and he was named as Sports Presenter of the Year in 2001 and 2005 by the Royal Television Society. Channel 4’s coverage concluded with England’s unforgettable men’s Ashes series victory in 2005 and he remained a permanent fixture on both sides of the globe for another 15 years, for Nine Network in Australia and Channel 5 in the UK.
He presently works for Supersport in South Africa, on TalkSPORT’s breakthrough radio coverage of England tours, and has previously featured on the world feed of the Indian Premier League tournament. Mark is a regular on ICC commentary teams for their global tournaments.
His writing skills are no less noteworthy. Mark joined the Daily Telegraph upon hanging up his boots and went on to write a personal memoir (A Beautiful Game: My Love Affair with Cricket) that alongside other awards was chosen as the Cricket Society and MCC Book of the Year in 2017. His long-term friendship with the late Shane Warne led to the pair co-authoring Warne’s compelling autobiography, No Spin, which was published to critical acclaim in 2018.
With Lord King of Lothbury at his side, Mark founded Chance to Shine, the charity that has done such a marvellous job in bringing cricket back into state schools. He remains fully involved and is looking forward to developing a closer relationship between CTS and the MCC Foundation.
He first entered the MCC Committee Room while still a player, beginning a ten-year stint on the Cricket committee in 1994. As well as three terms on the Club’s Main Committee, he has also served on the Marketing and Laws, Spirit & Ethos sub-committees.
“HIS PASSIONATE LOVE OF THE GAME ALLIED TO HIS EXPERIENCE AS A PLAYER, CAPTAIN AND EXPERT ANALYST WILL MAKE HIM A WONDERFUL PRESIDENT OF MCC”
Mark said of his appointment: “You only have to glance at the line of former Presidents of MCC to understand exactly what this honour means and what a privilege it is to receive it. I first watched cricket at Lord’s from behind the boundary rope on the outfield. I’ll get a smarter seat for a while now but will always wish I was still out there playing. What a game is cricket!”
Photo Credit: Twitter Profile Photo of @mcjnicholas
MCC President Stephen Fry said: “Mark Nicholas is as deeply steeped in cricket as anyone I know. His passionate love of the game allied to his experience as a player, captain and expert analyst will make him a wonderful President of MCC – with one eye on heritage and tradition, and the other on the future development and expansion of the game, to which he has devoted his life.”
Today’s Annual General Meeting at Lord’s was the second to be held in a hybrid format, with Members attending in person at the Ground as well as online.
