Grounds are bigger in Australia but the problem facing the counties is that the major Test grounds only fill up for high-profile local derby fixtures.
The creation of a 10-team tournament based at the category A grounds is seen by some as an answer to the financial problems hanging over the domestic game.
Eight years ago the ECB rejected a franchise Twenty20 competition proposed by Keith Bradshaw, then the chief executive of the MCC, and Surrey’s former chairman Dave Stewart. The plan, authored by Hampshire, Surrey, Lancashire and the MCC, warned that “there is an opportunity for one further major T20 tournament globally. Launching that tournament in England represents a once in a generation chance”.
But it was met by fierce opposition from the non-Test match ground counties and the ECB rejected it in favour of a 20-team EPL tournament that was to include an Allen Stanford all-stars team but never got off the ground. The counties feared losing their influence, despite the promise of being shareholders in the new tournament, and the ECB was in thrall to its Texan benefactor.
ECB chairman Colin Graves is undertaking a top-to-bottom' review of English cricket
Now opposition in the shires is beginning to fall away as counties realise they have to work together to protect their futures and the new ECB leadership is more open to the concept of franchises than the previous one.
“It is absolutely crucial to us in this country, if we want to get more people into the game to watch and play, that we have a tournament on the scale of the IPL, the Big Bash and the CPL,” Chris Grant, the chairman of Derbyshire told the Derby Evening Telegraph.
“T20 is a major provider of revenue and my big fear is that if we don’t establish an EPL as the 18 first-class counties, some entrepreneur in the Kerry Packer mould will see the opportunity and take it from us.
“Derbyshire members naturally get nervous when people talk about franchises because they don’t want the Test-match counties getting all the benefit of it but I don’t see it that way.
“I believe we could establish an English Premier League with franchises where all 18 first-class counties would be shareholders.
“Of course, you would want to play the games at a Trent Bridge or an Edgbaston because they are the grounds that are big enough to stage them but the franchises would pay a rental to play there and, apart from that, all the counties would share in the benefits.”
Surrey chairman Richard Thompson is currently in Australia looking at what his county can learn from the Big Bash and Graves has already commissioned his own research.
The Natwest T20 Blast was relaunched based on matches being played on Friday nights across the majority of the summer, something demanded by the counties.“Even if we had the money, it is hard to attract the likes of Chris Gayle at the moment to spend basically the whole summer in Derby just to play one game a week,” said Grant.
“That’s just not practical but we need the biggest names like Gayle to play here. We have to give the kids some heroes by giving them the opportunity to come and watch the biggest names in the game in an EPL.
“We have to get away from this tribal mentality. High-profile global sponsors would be very interested in getting involved and as long as the benefits are felt by all 18 counties, that has got to be good for the game. This is a great opportunity waiting to be grasped, in my view.”
0 comments:
Post a Comment