The former England captain Andrew Strauss was strategic adviser to the ECB while changes could mean a T20 setup with two divisions and 18 teams
. “There was a meeting in Nottinghamshire, six or seven years ago, where the counties looked at the options and decided – with a significant majority – that the preference was for a Premier League T20, county-based with promotion and relegation. That didn’t fit the template that was preferred by the ECB.”
The most likely new structure would see the number of teams increase from the current 10 to 18, split into two divisions, with a team running alongside, but independently of, each first-class county and with branding focused on cities. The ambition would be for the women’s tournament to eventually use the same format, though there might not be enough teams for it to do so from the start. Abandoning the 100-ball format would mean the tournament would have to be renamed though the fact that football’s Premier League is widely known as the EPL would make the most obvious rebranding problematic.
Last year the ECB extended its broadcast partnership with Sky until 2028, with the tournament a key part of that package and the broadcaster boasting of having played “a key part in its development”. A senior source at Sky told the Guardian that they “remain huge fans of the competition” which had “been a huge success taking the game to new audiences”.
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