Mike Soper’s second tilt at becoming chairman of the ECB is to be contested by Giles Clarke, an entrepreneur who heads its marketing committee and is overseeing a £60 million redevelopment of the County Ground in Taunton. Nominations closed last night and voting by the 18 first-class counties and MCC, some of whose representatives, as in a general election, are likely to give tacit support to one candidate but in reality back his opponent, will be declared on August 28.

Clarke, 54, who has implemented managerial changes as chairman of Somerset, is best known within the game for negotiating the ECB’s television deal three years ago. To a wider community he is the founder of Majestic Wine and Pet City. His companies now encompass the second-largest sellers of telephone hand-sets in Britain, a restaurant in Bristol named after his son, Jack - he derived great pleasure in drawing up the wine list himself - and the bohemian Boston Tea Party cafés. As a student, he paid his way through Oxford University by gambling and travelled extensively in Iran.

He has been proposed by Durham and seconded by Essex and Gloucestershire, whereas Soper, the deputy chairman of the ECB, has been proposed by Surrey and seconded by Sussex and Derbyshire - which is not to say the seconders of both candidates will necessarily vote for them. Neither candidate is required to provide the ECB with a manifesto of his intentions upon taking office.

Clarke did not wish to expand on his candidature, but he is known to be a strong supporter of the recent Schofield report and of youth and women’s cricket, whose headquarters is now based in Taunton.

The controversial, but lucrative, £220 million television deal that he forged with BSkyB, Channel Five and the BBC ensured that the ECB had about £15 million of reserves and hence could survive a washed-out Test - and brought him opprobrium, not least from the editor of Wisden.

As the chairman of Somerset, Clarke has made successful appointments in Richard Gould as chief executive and Brian Rose to run cricketing matters. Sir Ian Botham is his personal cricket adviser.

Clarke will stand down if he takes on this new role, so he will not see through the ambitious redevelopment of the rustic ground at Taunton.

If Soper, 61, who is suffering from incurable cancer, does not achieve his last remaining ambition now, he might never have another chance. He possesses long experience as an administrator and his enthusiasm for the game, always apparent when he was chairman of Surrey and as David Morgan’s deputy chairman of the ECB, has never left him.

The latest prognosis on his prostate and bone cancer is that he has four years to live, hence he tries not to waste a moment of time that is indeed precious. Soper was a successful chairman of Surrey, almost doubling the membership, is popular within the game and is regarded - as with Morgan - as being quite capable of dealing with ICC personnel. He spends a considerable amount of time visiting other counties, and, like Clarke, does not refrain from expressing strong opinions.

That said, his suggestion that cricket could match football in popular appeal is never likely to come to pass in the age of the Premier League and the selling-off of school playing fields.

His business career was more low-key than that of Clarke, but successful nonetheless. He owned a stationery business in Croydon and was introduced to the Surrey committee by Raman Subba Row, a neighbour and chairman of the TCCB, the forerunner to the ECB. Soper was once considered favourite to succeed Lord MacLaurin as chairman, just as now he is perceived to be the front-runner to defeat Clarke. Plenty of manoeuvrings are to come.

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