ECB looks into shortening County Championship due to rise of Twenty20

David Collier, the ECB's chief executive, has said that the first-class counties are ready to accept a shorter championship because Twenty20 is now the "bread and butter" of their finances. Collier is leading research looking at ways of cutting the four-day competition from 16 to 12 or 14 matches. However the plan is also to ensure that the space created will not be filled with more limited-overs matches. Free days will be allocated for time to rest and prepare, as in the national team. Collier admitted that the cost of a new-look County Championship will be the loss of some of the integrity of the two-division structure. "The mood has altered," Collier told The Times. "There is a growing understanding that the championship breeds England players and that they need to train and recuperate. People recognise more and more strongly that rest is a key rationale for change. This will be a cricket, not an economic, decision. "A key part of what we do is to make sure that if we do create additional gaps, then dates freed up are sacrosanct and do not get filled with more games. That was one of the key parts of the Schofield report [which followed the 2006-07 Ashes whitewash], but at the time it was a bridge too far and we did not get it through. "What has changed is the income stream of Twenty20 so that it now provides the bread and butter for the counties. I think it has given them more confidence to look again at the overall volume. Membership brought in by the championship is a big thing, but if the standard goes up because players are better prepared, that is a good trade-off. "The question is whether people are prepared to risk perhaps changing the integrity of the competition. What we have at the moment is good and it is not ideal, for example, if you do not play everybody in your group or division the same number of times. But something has to give." Collier emphasised that the ECB is not already committed to the type of conference structure first recommended by Lord MacLaurin of Knebworth, the chairman at the time, as far back as 1997 when it was thrown out by the counties. "It is difficult to see how you can get to 12 or 14 matches with the straight two divisions as they are at the moment," he said. "There may be an option for a first division with eight counties and the other ten in division two. You could have three divisions of six, you could have a conference format or you could have a mix. "The point is that we are looking at every option and it is not right to say we are wedded to a conference system, because we are not. At the moment the board has been tasked to look at ways of getting down to a certain amount of cricket and there is no obvious way of doing that." The final decision will be taken by the ECB board rather than the counties and Collier does not expect a decision until near the end of the season.