The "remarkable 80,000-plus crowd at the Melbourne Cricket Ground for a Big Bash T20 match has concentrated minds at the England Cricket Board" about its "urgent need for a similar tournament as soon as possible," according to Charles Sale of the London DAILY MAIL. The "long fight with the counties even to reduce the County Championship from 16 to 14 matches in 2017 to allow room at the centre of the summer calendar for a revamped Twenty20 tournament shows the difficulties" the ECB is facing around its city-based or 10-team blueprint. The ECB, which has its Commercial Dir Sanjay Patel Down Under studying the Big Bash formula, "will need to offer the counties considerable financial incentives to accept the changes."
There "will also have to be hard negotiations with rights holders Sky over the televising of the new tournament, for which some free-to-air coverage is a must to grow the game."
County powerhouse Surrey remains hugely opposed to any City-based tournament but "would favour a 10-county T20 Premier League played at the height of summer" (DAILY MAIL, 1/3).
