KEITH Cracknell is the new vice-chairman of Suffolk County Cricket Association.

Chairman Norman Atkins said that vice-chairman Phil Caley had stood down due to his commitments as chairman of the Minor Counties cricket committee, and that Cracknell was replacing him.

Cracknell has been involved with Suffolk since 2007 in his role as a director with the county’s main sponsors, Ipswich-based Brooks & Wood.

The other officers were re-elected en bloc.

Meanwhile, Suffolk Cricket Board will see funding towards its Chance to Shine programme cut in half this year.

The scheme was launched in 2005 by the Cricket Foundation to deliver structured coaching in primary and secondary state schools across the country.

Board chairman Roger Troughton told the Suffolk County Cricket Association Annual general meeting that the county could expect a reduction in the money received from the England & Wales Cricket Board following a freeze on its grant from Sport England.

“Whereas in the past we have received �60,000-�70,000, this year it will be around �32,000,” he said.

Troughton praised the work of the Board’s operations manager Rob Jones and his team, who had again met targets set by the ECB and so will therefore be able to claim some additional funding.

The Board’s account for the 15-month period up to December 2011 showed a deficit of income over expenditure of �24,629 largely due to expenditure on coach education, youth and women’s and girls’ cricket.

Jones said the Board would be looking at ways of generation extra income in the year ahead.

He said he was pleased to see that the Two Counties had accepted the proposal to regionalise Division Eight of the competition as players at that level wished to play more for social reasons than competitive reasons, and that clubs from the Suffolk Premier League, which had folded, had been accepted into the Two Counties.