City T20 ‘a threat to smaller counties’

ESSEX chairman John Faragher fears that the new city-based T20 tournament could have a detrimental effect on the County Championship and the domestic T20 event.

Faragher is worried about what will happen to the smaller counties, with it likely just be eight teams compared to 18 counties.

He said: “The proposal, in my view, will seriously, seriously devalue county cricket and our own domestic T20 competition.

“I’m very much in favour of change in cricket and we have to do that, we have to engage with the next generation of cricket followers.

“But it must be the right kind of change, not for the sake of change and for the benefit of some of the bigger counties who will financially do very well out of this, probably better than the smaller counties.

“I have a concern that if we were to go down this eight-team citybased route, we would end up possibly in the future having eight counties like state cricket in Australia.

“Then the other ‘smaller’ counties, the likes of us, Kent, Sussex, we would be pushed to one side and be made into minor counties.”