English cricket's moves to embrace the British Asian community are set to take a significant step with the appointment of Lord Patel as a director.

With the first Ashes Test about to start, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) is expected to announce the appointment of the Labour peer to its board as successor to Lord Bill Morris, the former trade union leader, who is stepping down.

The appointment reflects the ECB's determination to harness the appetite for cricket in the south Asian communities in Britain, both in terms of encouraging participation and in talent identification.

Kenya-born Patel's position on the ECB should be an important step - he is a veteran of the Bradford league and is still playing club cricket at the age of 54. He also served on the judging panel of last year's inaugural Asian Cricket Awards supported by ECB.

Lord Patel of Bradford is a former Yorkshire Cricket Academy part-time coach and has worked as an ambulance man, special constable and social worker. He now plays with his son as an all-rounder for Northowram Fields CC in the Central Yorkshire league.

Former Conservative minister Norman Tebbit, now Lord Tebbit, infamously referred to the 'cricket test' in 1990 to suggest some ethnic minority communities did not embrace England because they did not support the England cricket team.

However the ECB believes country allegiances are far less important than tapping into the interest in cricket in Asian and other ethnic minority communities who are already providing a sizeable number of players to county and national squads.

The ECB's new chief executive Tom Harrison has made driving up participation numbers a key target and the Asian communities will be included in that strategy.

Other elements of the participation plan include promoting the game in more informal surroundings such as beach cricket during the summer.

A new director of participation, Matt Dwyer, is due to start in August after moving from Cricket Australia.