An 11-man development committee, chaired by Robert Griffiths QC and incorporating the former prime minister Sir John Major and past England captains Tony Lewis and Mike Atherton, recommended unanimously that the redevelopment should proceed. In 2011, however, MCC’s chairman, Oliver Stocken, and its treasurer, Justin Dowley, threatened to resign if it were put into action, citing caution owing to a recession.

A meeting of the general committee broke up in acrimony with Christopher Martin-Jenkins, the president, forced to take the chair. The development committee was sacked and, in the aftermath, Major resigned from the general committee, on which he also sat.

Bradshaw, frustrated by a lack of progress, resigned his position later that year on the grounds that his mother had died and his disabled brother needed his assistance in Australia. Yet he would say that he felt he would have been sacked had he remained at Lord’s and continued to support the “Vision”.

In 2012 he took up a position as chief executive of the South Australian Cricket Association at Adelaide, where a similar redevelopment was already under way. This was completed and a pink ball successfully used at the highest level of the game.

Keith Bradshaw was born on October 2, 1963 in Hobart, Tasmania, the son of a television engineer, and educated at New Town High School. He was sufficiently gifted at cricket to be chosen for Tasmania’s under-16 and under-19 teams and for a short while played professionally for the state as a middle order batsman.

He found, though, that he was having to compete with an emerging generation of talented batsmen such as David Boon, who also came from Tasmania, Mark Taylor, who was to captain Australia, and Mark and Steve Waugh, who became two of their country’s finest cricketers.

Bradshaw made 25 first-class appearances for Tasmania, scoring 1083 runs at an average of 25.78 and taking nine wickets with his medium pace. He hit a century off a Queensland attack that included the formidable Jeff Thomson.

In 1986 he was awarded an Esso sports scholarship to play club cricket in England, for Sidley in Sussex, and he represented the county’s second XI, but the overseas cricketers employed by the club at the time, Imran Khan and Garth Le Roux, were too good for the captain, John Barclay (later to link up with Bradshaw when he became president of MCC), to leave out.

Bradshaw also played for Greenmount in the north of England under the instruction of Neville Neville, the father of Phil and Gary, future England footballers.

In 1988 Bradshaw decided to pursue a career in finance and embarked on an external degree course in commerce at the University of Tasmania. By the age of 40 he was a partner with Deloitte. His ability, capacity for hard work and pleasant nature brought him to the attention of a firm of head-hunters employed by MCC, which duly offered him the job of secretary.

Bradshaw was surprised by the offer; when contacted, he thought he was being asked to run Melbourne Cricket Club, not MCC on the other side of the world.

There were, however, difficulties inherent in the appointment of an outsider. Bradshaw was not accustomed to the English social hierarchy and had to deal with members’ concerns over the admission of women to the club: one complained about a new female member coming into the pavilion “dressed as if for a spot of gardening in a herbaceous border.”

‘Afterwards, I was taken aside and asked to explain why I had gone for three Etonians and no one from Harrow.’

Keith Bradshaw

He felt he was not sufficiently respected by his chairman and had shouting matches with Giles Clarke, the chairman of the ECB, who, he believed, had attempted to prevent an account of his five years at Lord’s from being published.

“Lord’s was awash with famous names and intelligent people – and those were just the hangers-on,” he said. “As an Australian unaccustomed to English ways, I did not appreciate the power of the unspoken word. There were a few classic examples of not knowing who was who in the zoo.

“I remember attending one particular sub-committee meeting when it was decided we would form a group to address a particular issue. I was asked by the chairman of the sub-committee who I would like to see appointed and I mentioned three or four names. Afterwards, I was taken aside and asked to explain why I had gone for three Etonians and no one from Harrow.

“I did not appreciate or understand the inner workings or hierarchy, the status of these individuals. It was a huge disadvantage not knowing, for example, whether a QC involved in the club was Jewish. There were factions within the general committee that became evident to me after I had been at Lord’s for a year or two that I needed to understand. No one tipped me off about this; I had to learn the hard way – and I did.”

Keith Bradshaw, who suffered from cancer during his time at Lord’s, was twice married but both marriages were dissolved. He is survived by two sons and two daughters.

The Telegraph, London.