There are very few good things to come out of the credit crunch but here’s one: the scaling down of the ECB’s rival to the IPL, the EPL.

Gone are the two overseas teams, with the ECB blaming it on the recession and Yosemite Stanford’s sudden allergic reaction to cricket. According to a report in The Times, it will feature only the 18 counties, each with four overseas players, and two leagues with relegation/promotion.

So not much of a scaling down, just a trim. What started off as the most bloated, hideous and misjudged idea since Mr Creosote ate a wafer-thin mint is now just a very bad idea. But it’s the ECB’s idea, so little surprise there. It’s received very little media attention, which must please Giles Clarke to bits, because the whole thing really needs further scrutinising.

There are still too many teams for it to be called ‘premier’; there still aren’t 72 box-office stars to enable all 18 counties to fill their four overseas slots with crowd-pulling quality players (which probably means Dwayne Leverock should be waiting by the phone); still no one wants to watch Leicestershire v Northamptonshire. It’s a non-starter.

The ECB should either make it properly premier by halving the number of teams or abandon it altogether and leave the current Twenty20 Cup format alone – it’s worked wonders so there’s no need to tinker. Instead, the ECB has gone Hollywood and started indiscriminately jabbing it with Botox to hold on to its youth. As always, the scarring is all too visible.

After the ECB announced its proposals for an English Premier League last week, we asked our panel to give their verdict on the new domestic structure…

Edward Craig

Deputy editor of The Wisden Cricketer

The EPL is a fantastic idea. It will re-generate the flagging Twenty20 Cup with some glamorous overseas players and a cash investment that can market
and spice up each match more successfully than happens now. It is self-contained in the schedule, will have an added tension with promotion and relegation and more people will be able to see a higher-class competition. It will be county cricket played with England players – yes, England players, county cricket, playing – it can happen, and the rest of the world will watch. Twenty20 Internationals are becoming increasingly important, this can only help England’s T20 prospects. And the Twenty20 Friday league? Now everyone knows when the games will be – every Friday – brilliant. Not even football does that. I think the ECB have got this one right.

Daniel Brigham

Assistant editor of The Wisden Cricketer

The EPL will be of massive interest for about the first five games. Then everyone will realise watching Middlesex take on Northamptonshire, with Matthew Bell and Paul Harris among the ‘star’ international players, is about as close to the IPL as the Carling Cup is to the Champions League.

The ECB has missed a massive opportunity to secure cricket’s future in the British – and the worldwide – public’s conscience for the next couple of decades and all because Giles Clarke thinks ‘counties first, England second.’ It stinks.

Rob Smyth

Freelance journalist and fitness fanatic

When football’s Premier League was set up in 1992, the legendary writer Brian Glanville christened it the ‘Greed Is Good’ league. The description looks more apt by the year, and it surely applies to the EPL. It’s too much of a bad thing. Aside from that Twenty20 is an affront to the game, with all the soul and wit of a drunken back-alley fumble, the structure looks flawed on a number of levels, not least the preposterous plan to invite two guest overseas teams each year. For the umpteenth time, the ECB has shown it knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Robin Martin-Jenkins

Sussex allrounder, columnist and beneficiary

I’d say the new plans for T20 in this country are disappointing. I don’t see much difference between the two different proposed competitions. Admittedly we await the decision on how many overseas players will be allowed but a competition with fewer sides, and therefore better players, including some top-class overseas ones, would surely be a more attractive proposition for potential sponsors and the TV audience. It wouldn’t have to be based on cities (that would clearly not work) but the 18 counties could have been split into six areas with the venues for matches shared between the three teams in each area. County stalwarts, like me, might miss out on the new competition but I think I’m big enough to forgo a salary hike for the betterment of English cricket!

King Cricket

Blogger extraordinaire

Of course they’ve fudged it. The ECB are fudgers par excellence. Only people made out of sugar, butter or milk need apply for positions there.

That said, there was no perfect solution. They wanted cricket on Friday nights and they wanted a big tournament that would attract the stars. Unfortunately the cricket calendar makes those two wants mutually exclusive, so they’ve created a competition for each: the big name-laden EPL and a longer-running tournament for July, August and September. Maybe this is the next step in their market research and the two competitions will be amalgamated with the best bits of each in a few years.

Initially, the EPL appears significantly the bigger draw. However it may suffer through direct comparisons with the IPL. Plus it’s got that stupid league-leading-to-semi-finals format that makes finishing top of little actual benefit.

If the EPL does come out like a pale facsimile of its Indian cousin, then perhaps elements of the other league will have more legs. Get regular Friday night matches onto terrestrial television and who honestly knows how successful it might prove? Twenty20 might reach newer viewers who wouldn’t be attracted by international players they’ve never heard of anyway. It’ll be a new British summer lifestyle: everyone watching the Twenty20 before heading off to the pub …
No? Not buying it?

Sam Collins

Web editor of www. thewisdencricketer.com

It’s a classic, bungling farce from the ECB. Clarke and Collier are comic-book villains – blinkered and greedy. Not only does the new structure threaten to saturate Twenty20, but it is crass stupidity to hold the EPL in June, when the English summer is at its most unpredictable. Seeing as we are no longer allowed to watch Test cricket after the beginning of August, why couldn’t they have held it then? I do like the idea of Friday night Twenty20, but that is an isolated positive.

The person I feel sorry for in all this is Keith Bradshaw. He came up with a great idea and he’s been hung out to dry. He’s a cricket administrator, not David Blaine, and was never going to convince counties to sign up for a structure that might eventually lead to their downfall. The EPL is merely further confirmation that the much-needed reform in the English game will never happen because of the self-interest of the counties.

THE VERDICT

Most think it’s a bad thing, there’s a lone voice in support, although all our writers do concede positives. Still, the ECB and Giles Clarke have clearly given us the feeling that money comes first in their brave new world. We’ll have to wait till 2010 to find out whether it’ll work but before then we still need to know how many overseas players will play and exactly who those overseas teams will be (Allen Stanford’s got a side, apparently … )

REASONS WHY THE ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE WON’T WORK

• It isn’t premier. Especially when it has a second division. Unless they call the first division the premier premier league.

• Twenty teams? 12 too many.

• It’s scheduled for June. On average, June is far wetter than May and July.

• Few people in England want to see Leicestershire v Northamptonshire, so why will anyone from abroad want to watch it?

• Fireworks and laser shows in Derby? You have to be kidding – they’re still working out how to combat the sun.

• They haven’t announced any cheerleaders! Why not?

• So, twenty teams. Each team is likely to have four international stars. So there needs to be at least 80 box-office international cricketers to spread around. There are barely 30 in the world.

• Bill Frindall will have to work so quickly that his beard will catch alight.

• The majority of the matches will be played in front of around 6,000 people. Hardly an atmosphere to rival the IPL.

• Giles Clarke will probably attend every much in Allen Stanford’s helicopter and point at people he doesn’t know like they’re his best mate.

• The current Twenty20 Cup, which will run over three months, will be redundant.

• There won’t be enough money to go around to afford all of the big-name stars

• Shilpa Shetty isn’t involved. Hmmm. Does Charlotte Church like cricket?

REASONS WHY THE ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE WILL WORK

• It won’t.

Daniel Brigham is assistant editor of The Wisden Cricketer