CITIES READY TO BLAST OFF
Counties agree to T20 revolution
City cricket came a big step closer yesterday when the ECB persuaded the majority of doubting counties that the future of twenty20 lies with teams like London, Birmingham and Manchester rather than Essex, Somerset and Gloucestershire.
A meeting of all 18 county chairmen and chief executives, along with those from MCC, voted 16- 3 in favour of adopting in principle the ambitious plans of ECB powerbrokers tom Harrison and Colin Graves for a city competition.
Harrison and Graves, the new ECB chief executive and chairman, staked their reputations on forcing through what is hoped will be an eight-team competition in peak summer based at test grounds from 2018.
And their pledge that every county would receive an additional £1.5million from the extra competition, which will take place alongside the existing 18-county NatWest t20 Blast, was enough to convince hard-up counties.
yet there is some way to go before the event, which aims to replicate the success of Australia’s Big Bash, gets the full green light, with one chief executive telling Sportsmail: ‘they may have won the battle but they haven’t won the war’.
Five models were put forward at Lord’s yesterday but, realistically, there were only two options on the table, the city competition to be played along with the county shortform event and a two division revamped English Premier League, championed by Surrey.
the picture was complicated by gagging orders imposed on the counties by the paranoid ECB which has stopped them discussing the ramifications of the event with their members and players, who were represented at yesterday’s summit by the Professional Cricketers’ Association.
Now those non-disclosure orders have been lifted and the counties will be free to explore fully the consequences of a revolutionary concept that goes against the existing constitution of the governing body which insists all 18 counties take part in every domestic competition.
the next full board meeting of the ECB in October will make the final decision on whether the tournament will be adopted in less than two years’ time even though the existing broad- casting contract does not run out until 2019.
Graves said: ‘the need to grow interest and participation in the game we love is at the core of our thinking. this format was invented here and is successful worldwide. Now we are looking to use domestic twenty20 for an even bigger purpose.’
Nasser Hussain, the Sportsmail columnist whose career ended before the twenty20 Cup started in 2003, told Sky Sport: ‘i don’t want to write off the history of 18 firstclass clubs but you can’t please all the people all the time.
‘We started the twenty20. Other countries have gone past us. if you start again now, would you do it with the present system? Probably not. Just because it’s good doesn’t mean you can’t improve on it.’
Surrey, Sussex and Kent are believed to be the counties who voted against the plans because they worry that it will undermine the county game and question whether supporters will take to completely new teams.
Other doubters, like Durham and current t20 Blast champions Northants, are simply too hard up to argue with the ECB, who have been accused of bullying tactics against cash-strapped counties.
Logistical problems are numerous and the ECB still have a lot of work to do if the project is going to be rubber- stamped in time to be introduced the season after next, with a packed domestic and international calendar already in place.
For instance, will the County Championship continue when the all- singing, all- dancing new competition takes place in a block during July? And if so, will it be undermined by the absence of players who are drafted by the city teams?
Also, Surrey and yorkshire would be expected to host teams at the Oval and Headingley but are adamant they want to retain their county identities rather than being called South London or Leeds. Perhaps significantly, the ECB have been looking into the prospect of city cricket at Wembley or the London Stadium.
Surrey chief executive Richard Gould said: ‘While we would have very much preferred for an option involving all counties to have remained on the table, we are looking forward to working constructively with the ECB in the direction of travel that has been agreed at today’s meeting.’