City-based Twenty20 tournament moves a step closer as ECB reveals more details - BBC Sport
English cricket's new eight-team, city-based Twenty20 tournament moves a step closer as the ECB reveals further details.
Last updated on .From the section Cricket

A new eight-team, city-based Twenty20 tournament could "absolutely rival the Indian Premier League" says England and Wales Cricket Board chief Tom Harrison.

The competition, proposed to begin in 2020, moved a step closer on Monday as further details were revealed.

ECB chief executive Harrison said it was "not a gamble" for the 18 first-class counties.

"What we are doing here is future-proofing county cricket," Harrison told BBC sports editor Dan Roan.

"I don't think it's so much a gamble, it's about saying, 'What do we want our business and our game to look like?'"

The IPL - and Australia's Big Bash tournament - enjoy huge success, attracting the world's best limited-overs players and drawing large crowds.

A referendum is expected to be dispatched on Tuesday inviting stakeholders to sanction a tournament including eight teams, rather than the 18 counties who traditionally contest the main competitions domestically.

On Monday, the ECB presented a detailed overview of its proposals for a new Twenty20 competition to its 41 members. These included:
• None Eight new teams playing 36 games over a 38-day summer window, with four home games per team
• None No scheduling overlap with the existing T20 Blast competition
• None An Indian Premier League-style play-off system to give more incentive for finishing higher up the league
• None A players' draft, with squads of 15 including three overseas players

Why does the ECB want to change?

It says cricket has the chance to be part of "mainstream conversation" and believes the new competition can make the sport "relevant to a whole new audience".

Following a period of consultation including more than 10,000 interviews, the ECB decided on three key principles:
• None To have a major positive impact on driving participation
• None To focus on recruiting the next generation of fans, in particular promoting attendance to a diverse, young, family audience
• None To ensure complete differentiation from existing cricket tournaments to protect and support the future of the county game

"What we absolutely need to do, is start appealing to a younger audience," said Harrison.

"We know that by doing things differently, by building new teams, we can be relevant to a whole new audience and bring this very diverse, multicultural Britain in to our stadiums in a way perhaps we haven't been successful in doing."

Is this the end of county cricket?

This will be the first time in the history of domestic cricket that first-class counties are not represented, hence the need for a change to the ECB's articles and constitutions.

It was confirmed on Monday that all 18 clubs have signed "media rights deeds" to allow the governing body to include the new Twenty20 in their forthcoming broadcast portfolio.

Asked if the move to a city-based format signalled the end of the county system, Harrison said: "Not at all. I think what we are doing here is future-proofing county cricket.

"Cricket has been a sport which has always had the ability to evolve and change where it's needed to, and its shown itself to be incredibly adaptable.

"We are the sport which came up with short formats through T20, and other sports have been trying to find the T20 equivalent of their own.

"So we have demonstrated we are capable of it, we've got the format, we now just need to create the competition which enables these new fans to get involved.

The ECB says the proposed competition can rival the incredible success of the Indian Premier League and Australia's Big Bash, which draws average crowds of more than 28,000.

Questions remain around where the tournament will fit into the schedule, and which of the world's best players will be available.

The ECB insists it will not impact on the T20 Blast, which last season featured the likes of West Indies star Chris Gayle and New Zealand's Brendon McCullum.

"We think there's a lot of room for growth in the Blast," said Harrison. "It's done a tremendous job at bringing in a county cricket audience.

"But the evidence we have suggest cricket exists in a bubble and we've got to get outside this bubble."

The ECB's aim for "significant" free-to-air coverage is an "aspiration which reaches at the heart of our proposition going forward", according to Harrison.

"We are hoping very much as part of that is a whole new calibration of our reach, so a whole new way of looking at access to our sport whether that's digitally whether it's through social media or whether it's through traditional TV channels," he added.

"But we also understand it has to be the right mix of revenue and reach and promotion of the game which is ultimately what we're searching for."

'It will be a roaring success' - analysis

Cricket needs that moment in this country that changes the way we talk and think about the game. It's got to be good for the game.

The key to the Big Bash is being seen. Every single person in Australia can see every single ball. Cricket is now the number one sport in Australia.

Where the Big Bash has had huge success is they make sure the fan experience is key, and almost the cricket is secondary. The fans, and it's about 50-50 between men and women, and the kids, they all go home having had a great time.

The only thing in terms of a county perspective is this new tournament will be a massive juggernaut, get loads of marketing and the county game may say: 'Why didn't we get that support?'

This board of the ECB, I feel, are very visionary. You are going to get some terrific teams. I believe it will be a roaring success.

It would make a huge difference. I think it's very important that the public are given an opportunity to see cricket on a national level on free to air TV so it will be interesting to see how things pan out and what decisions are made.

I think it's a very good idea. It's great to see it's been given some thought. You look at other competitions around the world and they've been very successful so we'll wait to see what happens in the coming months.