Sussex would be willing to consider the possibility of a Twenty20 franchise tournament.

The success of the Big Bash League in Australia has reignited interest in launching a similar city-based competition in England.

New ECB chief executive Colin Graves has made revamping domestic Twenty20 cricket one of his top priorities since taking over from Giles Clarke.

A tournament featuring ten teams playing at Test grounds has been mooted with all 18 first class counties sharing the profits evenly.

It would mean there would be no Twenty20 games played at Hove with cricket fans in Sussex having to travel to either the Ageas Bowl or the Oval too see live action.

Derbyshire chairman Chris Grant has come out in favour of a franchise-based tournament saying “it is absolutely crucial if we want to get more people into the game”.

Sussex chief executive Zac Toumazi is open-minded about exploring the benefits of such a move but insists there are plenty of obstacles that would need to be cleared before it became a reality.

Toumazi said: “We have got an open mind to it providing the distribution is fair.

“It is something that has been talked about for years. I remember when I was at Surrey there was an interesting paper on it but the press got hold of it which scuppered it before there was any real research.

“I think franchises are worthy of a healthy debate and I hope that when the chief executives next meet it is something that is put on the agenda.

“What we need is to get some real data to see whether it would work for everybody but it is something we definitely need to have a thorough review of.

“Until it has been tried it is something that will always be talked about but I think there is enough head of steam worked up for us to have a good look at it now.

“The question is would it work for us? There could potentially be winners and losers so we need to make sure it is fair to everyone.

“The trouble is we have got 18 first class counties and they will all have slightly different views on it.

“ I can’t even get my family of eight to agree what they want for dinner!”

The ECB only relaunched the domestic Twenty20 competition last year after undertaking extensive market research. Sussex were against the move to play the majority of their games in the NatWest T20 Blast on Friday nights spread over the summer rather than in a three-week block.

Crowds at Hove have traditionally been strong for Twenty20 games and attendances were slightly up in 2014 on the previous year.

Toumazi added: “First of all we should all get behind the current format and see what this season brings. We’ve only had one year of a three-year plan so it seems a bit premature to be judging it already.

“My worry with going down the franchise route is that would people be willing to travel to the Ageas Bowl to watch a game, especially considering the A27 is not a great road?

“And if there are only ten teams rather than 18 what do the players who are not involved for those three weeks do? These are all things that need to be discussed in detail before we can decide whether a franchise would work in this country.”

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