LAST week, exactly 100 years after it was disbanded, London County Cricket Club was relaunched in the City at the behest of Neil Burns, the former Somerset and Leicestershire wicketkeeper. The aim of the club, whose first match will be against Sussex in late August, mirrors that of the founder, W. G. Grace, who said in 1899: “The purpose is to give invaluable first-class match experience to many cricketers who would not otherwise get it and who would be all the better for it when they play county cricket.”

The original club enjoyed fixtures against MCC and Australia as well as the counties. Burns, the chief executive who is putting up some of his own money to get the project started, wants similar high-profile fixtures to enable money to be raised and to give undiscovered talent a suitable stage. On Friday, Burns will hold a meeting “to put together a body of people to mastermind the club’s financing”.

A well-known former county coach, who will be a paid chief scout, has already been written into the business plan. Several retired senior cricketers will scout in an unpaid capacity. They will look at emerging cricketers from “outside the system” who are not playing in any of the established leagues and who have not been given trials by counties. “It is all about opportunity. The ECB have their system, but it’s designed for the cream of the crop,” Burns said. “We will be looking in disadvantaged areas.”

Next winter, the club is due to tour South Africa, while a lengthy fixture list is planned for 2005.