English premier league. Oh dear.

[Leicester Fox]

There will be an English premier league in 2010. All 18 counties are in which is good news. No franchises. There wll be 2 divisions. 10 teams in each division. 2 new teams. There will still be 16 county championship games and a 50 over competition but no pro 40. It'll be in July and August, Friday nights and this will qualify teams for the champions league.

Pretty rubbish, the IPL was bad enough, quite why we want our own I don't know. Well I do, ££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££.

Basically it's just the old twenty20 cup ith a worse format. The 2 other teams will be overseas teams. They say they want the best players, don't know where they plan on getting the money for them though.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/cricket/7510080.stm

oh and yes i am faster than the bbc

 

[Will_NA]

At least it WILL have county teams like I said.

 

[m_vaughan]

I actually preferred the 3 division format. Why cant they have 4 divisions of 5 teams each? Why do you need overseas teams in a domestic competition?

 

[Skater]

It will butcher the structure of the season. The best to me is:

• mid April-mid May - 50 over trophy group stages
• late May-mid July - half of the 4 day championship
• mid July-mid August - unchanged Twenty20 Cup
• late August - 50 over trophy finals

• late August-mid September - rest of the 4 day championship

That would involve an unchanged 50 over trophy and a championship slashed to 10 matches per season. The idea to run in the EPL alongside the current Twenty20 Cup is ridiculous.

 

[Kev]

Realistically Lee anything that cut the number of Championship games would never get voted for.

I'm not sure why they are running two T20 competitions either. I see no logic to it unless for the EPL the teams are going to be so packed with overseas players that none of the actual county players are going to get a look in.

 

[DPRA]

Well.

This just about sums the ECB up. Once we see how the IPL went, we decide to do our own.

This is horrible, I am going to quote Shane Warne here "If there is Too Much Twenty20 action people will end up getting bored of it" and that sure looks the case here.

R.I.P. True English Cricket :

 

[manee]

Oh dear. I must have mis-understood, having two T20 competitions in England is senseless.

 

[Kev]

Actually its not that many games, and most county spectators don't watch IPL anyway. At least not many that I've talked to.

Personally I don't give 2 hoots as to what Warnie says about it, he didn't play in the T20 cup for the last couple of years despite being Hampshire captain, then someone waves a big cheque under his nose and suddenly IPL is "new and exciting" and he's off to play T20 cricket. As long as the Championship and the 50 over competiton remains I don't much care what happens with T20.

Kev added 1 Minutes and 15 Seconds later...

Oh dear. I must have mis-understood, having two T20 competitions in England is senseless.

I had to read 3 different articles before it was clear in my head that there were going to be two. I was thinking after reading the first one "Am I stupid here, are they going to have 2 competitions or is that a misprint"

 

[Sureshot]

Well.

This just about sums the ECB up. Once we see how the IPL went, we decide to do our own.

This is horrible, I am going to quote Shane Warne here "If there is Too Much Twenty20 action people will end up getting bored of it" and that sure looks the case here.

R.I.P. True English Cricket :

It makes sense. Reduces the risk of losing players to the Indian leagues.

I am fairly happy with what has been done. I don't see much point in 2 T20 competitions, but it doesn't look like being a complete over-kill of T20. One game a week, isn't much. It should help counties finances a lot more too.

 

[MUFC1987]

These whole ideas are just pointless to me. The only good news is that all the Counties are involved, but then, getting in overseas players is going to be horrendous. Some guy on SS News has just mentioned 'World Class' overseas players, so what, say there are 4 per team, are there really 80 WORLD CLASS international players out there? It's going to be even more of a joke that it is at the moment, with a load of journeymen players being paid money that could be used to fund English players and facilities and the like.

I just don't get it, I don't want to watch my team being represented by Overseas players, I want to see them being represented by local, or at the very least British, players.

 

[spartie]

revamping county cricket to the EPL just stinks of reactionism. This is all part of the ECB having a fit over the fact that IPL could package cricket and market it like football in Europe. All this will do is either force English players to stay home and turn the EPL into the equivalent of the Russian Ice Hockey Superleague in the 1970s, while the IPL (with higher salaries) turns into the NHL. The other alternative may be that the EPL becomes competitive, salarywise, but gets handcuffed by trying to do too much. They will spread resources too thin by trying to provide T20, one-day counties, and 4 day championships. Leave T20 to the IPL, let English players play in IPL if they wish, and make county cricket more competitive on the salary level. Thats the best way to attract top players. Leagues that rely on protectionism by their national governing bodies are doomed from the start. The Russian Superleague became a 2nd-tier league because of it, as players defected to Canada/USA to play in the NHL. Cuban baseball players flee to play in the majors, despite being treated as national heroes at home.
Keep in mind that banning players from playing elsewhere is different from capping the number of import players. It makes jobs available for homegrown athletes, but allowing players to choose where they play forces the league to be more competitive for top talent.

Glad to see no Pro 40. It was an asinine idea from the start

 

[m_vaughan]

Yup I too never really absorbed the Pro40 concept.

 

[Skater]

If the Pro 40 was still in the form of the John Player Sunday League it would be quite enjoyable.

 

[lancashire666]

HAHAHAHAHA, 2 T20 compatations! the ECB really can do a great april fools joke cant they, wait a cotten picking minute!!!! its the middle of July, that means that their serious!!

goddamm

 

[Highlander999]

This is bull, absolute and complete bull s***

IPL has really cocked cricket up now