New city Twenty20 moves step closer

ENGLISH cricket’s new city-based Twenty20 tournament is a giant stride closer after counties supplied the mandate necessary to “trigger” a postal vote for constitutional change.

The England and Wales Cricket Board executive is expected to agree at a Lord’s meeting on Tuesday morning to dispatch the referendum in which the 41 representatives of first-class counties, MCC and recreational boards will be invited to sanction an amendment to the governing body’s existing rules in order to accommodate a tournament including just eight teams from 2020 onwards.

ECB chief executive Tom Harrison confirmed, after his presentation on the latest plans for the competition, that the 18 counties and MCC have all signed “media rights deeds”.

That assent, allowing ECB to add the new tournament to a portfolio offered to prospective media outlets this summer, is a significant indicator that – following a 28-day period in which responses to the postal vote must be received – it will be full steam ahead to a brave new world for English cricket.

A minimum 31 of the 41 stakeholders must give their consent.

The amended constitution will pertain, it is understood, in a one-off capacity only for the planned eightteam Twenty20 rather than any further dilution of the counties’ existing right to take part in all professional domestic competitions.