ECB Set To Scrap New Twenty20 Plans
Plans put forward by the England and Wales Cricket Board for the introduction of a new all-star Twenty20 competition to rival the Indian Premier League look likely to be scrapped according to media reports.
The domestic schedule was due to include two Twenty20 tournaments, including the proposed new P20 competition20, which was to be played in June and designed to attract the world’s leading players.
However forecasts that the two-division P20 would bring in millions of pounds have been drastically downgraded and the competition now seems unlikely to be introduced.
A title sponsor has not been found and an overseas broadcasting deal has been scuppered by legal advice, questioning whether the contracting of India players to first division teams would comply with employment law. A projected income of £150,000 to £250,000 per team would have left counties struggling to afford player salaries.
A meeting of county chief executives and chairmen this week will discuss two draft schedules for next season, neither of which is believed to include the proposed new P20 competition.
A document circulated for discussion at this week’s meeting was reported to read: ‘The premise that Indian players could be centrally contracted with a requirement for one Indian player in each Division 1 team and assigned in a form of draft pick structure could be challengeable under the Race Discrimination Act/Restraint of Trade.
‘Furthermore, specialist international T20 players may not qualify for work permits unless they have fulfilled the international player criteria. This is viewed as a substantial risk for a competition based in the UK/Europe. The presence of such players is a fundamental condition for an Asian broadcaster to televise P20 cricket to the Asian market.’
David Collier, the ECB chief executive, has insisted that the option of two 20-overs competitions remains feasible, but the revised schedules indicate that a single, enhanced version of the Twenty20 Cup is the ECB’s preferred option.
More matches would be played on Friday nights and weekends, rather than the concentrated blocks of matches of the present Twenty20 Cup and the proposed P20. The plan to attract the world’s best players was also contingent on playing the competition in June, but this would not be possible under the revised, extended schedule.
Problems with next season’s fixture list have been created by the need to accommodate the lucrative Champions League in September, in which the winners and runners-up of the P20 were due to take part. To bring about an earlier finish to the season, a reduced number of matches in the LV County Championship from 16 to 14 or 12 had been proposed.
The revised draft schedules make it more likely that the present two-division structure will survive, but the number of matches played by each county may be reduced to 14. A final decision on the structure will be taken at an ECB meeting on 29th July.
