Keith Booth, the Surrey scorer whose complaints about the treatment to men of his profession during the recent World Twenty20 tournament have been included in an advisory paper to the ICC, has resigned from the Association of County Cricket Scorers.

His protest is directed at Chris Kelly, the ECB’s umpires and match operations manager, and colleagues who have not supported his proposals for a training programme.

“Chris Kelly made a pig’s ear of the appointments for the World Twenty20 and no scorer was informed beforehand what his pay or duties would be — whether they would be using a scorebook, Duckworth/Lewis method or a Press Association laptop or all three,” Booth said. “There was no apology forthcoming from him.

“Scoring is a more professional task than it was 20 years ago and the ACCS committee, which is chaired by Alan West, of Lancashire, has been slow in getting this off the ground. My point is that there must be a scorer representative on the ECB’s Association of Cricket Officials, which oversees umpiring and scoring training. ACCS has done nothing to encourage this since I sent it a paper in 2002.

“A newcomer to first-class scoring, whether he is a young person, pensioner or retired pro, requires at present a basic competence and familiarity with the game’s regulations and playing conditions, as well as with the Duckworth/Lewis method and a Press Association laptop. Almost as important, in the eyes of the county scorers, is an ability to get on with the players, and an intuitive knowledge over when to enter and leave the dressing room.”

Scoring for England at a Test match is generally a duty allotted to the host club’s representative: West at Old Trafford and Booth at the Brit Oval. About half the 38 members of the ACCS are regarded of sufficient standing to score in international cricket.

The one occasion on which they considered strike action was over the appointment of Malcolm Ashton as England scorer on tour in the 1990s because he was not a county scorer. It is undecided whether exams or assessments will be required in the future.

Whereas umpires must have recall of the Laws, a scorer is simply judged on his work at the end of the fixture. It is possible that he — or she — could work with a mentor and be assessed at first-class grounds in the way that umpires are at present and the first-class scorers’ annual meeting in October could become a seminar.

The ECB organises a level-one correspondence course for beginners that turns into a tutored course. The late Bill Frindall was keen to introduce exams and training in the linear method that he introduced.