The England & Wales Cricket Board's proposals for an eight-team, city-based Twenty20 tournament "have been met with a mixed response from first-class counties," according to Dev Trehan of SKY SPORTS. A broad outline agreement on the plan "was reached at a meeting of the chairmen and chief executives of the 18 first-class counties, MCC and the Professional Cricketers' Association (PCA) at Lord's on Wednesday." But County Championship Division Two side Sussex "confirmed their opposition to the move via a statement released on their website on Thursday morning." It read, "The board is open to considering change in the schedule, but our strong preference is that domestic tournaments should feature all 18 first-class counties."
That premise is, in fact, written into the ECB's constitution and will have to be amended if -- as expected -- the governing body "further commits to the new 'Big Bash'-style tournament." Middlesex Chair Mike O'Farrell "has also spelled out the importance of impending consultation with his county's supporters." He emphasized that Middlesex "cannot vote for the new competition until they have asked their members' opinions." He said, "We made it very clear to the ECB that we could not consider voting for such a dramatic change to the domestic cricket landscape without first consulting our members" (SKY SPORTS, 9/15). In London, Vic Marks wrote the vote "is not binding." Meetings with county CEOs and their members "will follow, but the door is now wide open for an upheaval -- another one -- of the domestic schedule." The chairmen "will be able to offer the consolation to their members that this new competition will," according to their market researchers, produce "significant cash" for their clubs, possibly to the tune of £1.5M ($1.9M) per year. This "will be snatched eagerly since many clubs, not just the minnows but also some of those who host Test cricket, are in grave financial difficulty." Moreover the ECB "will delight in having another product to sell to a broadening television market in 2020." However the supporters of the smaller county clubs, including Northamptonshire, the winner of this year’s T20 tournament, "will now be denied access to the best T20 can offer." There "may be more than eight venues for the eight teams but the smaller clubs are likely to miss out on these games." ECB Chair Colin Graves "was predictably upbeat, especially since the opposition to this scheme seems to have declined so dramatically." He said, "We’ve all been looking at how we can use domestic T20 for an even bigger purpose, especially getting more young people to play" (GUARDIAN, 9/15).
