LORD Marland began his election campaign to become the new chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board by criticising Giles Clarke’s spell in the post and claiming there are ‘‘systematic problems’’ within the current regime.

The 52-year-old former treasurer of the Conservative Party is the only challenger to Clarke’s bid for re-election after claiming sufficient support from the counties to force an election, which must take place in the next fortnight.

As an experienced member of Britain’s political system – he helped Boris Johnson’s successful campaign to become London Mayor in addition to his four-year spell as Tory treasurer – Marland wasted no time in attempting to get his campaign started.

While Clarke hosted a forum in Leicestershire attended by former players, officials from the International Cricket Council and the counties to discuss the future of Test cricket, Marland immediately seized centre stage with an attack on the ECB’s recent record.

Marland criticised the ECB’s association with Texan billionaire Sir Allen Stanford and claimed there was a rift among the counties about Clarke’s chairmanship.

He also believes the ECB, under Clarke’s leadership, had missed out when they failed to come to an agreement with India, South Africa and Australia and were excluded from becoming a partner country of the Champions League.

His most stinging criticism was reserved for the ECB’s handling of the dressing room disagreements which led to Peter Moores’ sacking and Kevin Pietersen’s resignation shortly after Christmas and the hasty appointment of Andrew Strauss as temporary captain shortly before the squad set out for an 11-week tour of the West Indies.

‘‘There are clearly systematic problems within the ECB that has lent to the sacking effectively on the same day of both coach and captain,’’ stressed Marland.

‘‘The systematic problems go quite deep and quite wide and go quite a long way back – there has been non-stop fire-fighting in the ECB.

‘‘They’ve had fire-fighting after their failure to get on with India, Australia and South Africa in the IPL, the disastrous Stanford cricket match and their failure to deliver the middle east tournament as an alternative to the IPL.

‘‘There needs to be much more harmony in Test match cricket and in cricket in this country. There is clearly a big divide among the counties as to how it is run and things are not harmonious – my approach would be more conciliatory.’’ The 18 first class counties and the MCC each receive a vote for the new chairman with the successful candidate needing 10 to have his election validated by the 41 ECB members.

Marland is already believed to have the support of Leicestershire, Surrey, Hampshire and Lancashire.