I've some sympathy with Muttiah Muralitharan's suggestion that a franchise format would work well in English Twenty20 cricket.
It's certainly not a new view - before the whole Allen Stanford fiasco in 2008 I came up with the idea of introducing a system that mirrored football's Premier League.
The concept was simple enough: create a structure that allowed football fans to support a cricket team of the same name in football's off-season.
Bairstow: averaged 12.66 against the West Indies in four Test innings
But I wasn't the only one pushing the franchise formula by any means.
Back then Keith Bradshaw, the secretary of the MCC, and Surrey chairman David Stewart backed a city-based franchise format but ECB chairman Giles Clarke decided to go down the Stanford route instead.
The 18-county structure wasn't sacrosanct then and it isn't now, in my view, but it is in the eyes of the ECB and when push comes to shove that's all that really matters.
I've long been an advocate of having a Premier League of six teams for four-day cricket.
Bob Willis
Quotes of the week
So while English cricket has missed the boat, and counties continue to rely heavily on Twenty20 revenue, the IPL has stolen a march and the cash.
Barricade
The powers that be still have some work to do when it comes to scheduling future seasons.
The Morgan Review has hit a barricade for now because most County chairmen prefer keeping 16 four-day games and squeezing enough limited overs cricket around those matches to keep everybody happy.
Unfortunately there just aren't enough days in the season to do that plan justice.
I've long been an advocate of having a Premier League of six teams for four-day cricket.
Each would play 10 four-day matches a year and you'd then have two regional divisions below that, with the top teams playing off for one promotion place a season so that you would get the best players playing for those best teams.
Personally, I think England made an error by picking Jonny Bairstow out of second division Championship cricket where the bowling is pretty poor, rather than go for a batsman from the first division where the bowling is a whole lot better.
The International programme needs looking at too.
If you include the T20 internationals there are 17 one-day internationals this summer and only six Test matches. I think that's well out of kilter but I would probably be in the minority.
Recent Comments:
Ellie Scott on Bang up to speed
"Hi Bob, Brett Lee has been my favourite Aussie cricketer for some time - he just comes across as such a great guy surrounded by a team of miserable blokes! And he has been a ... " View all comments
Peter Dixon on Plenty empty cricket
"Us older members feel that we have gone as far as we want to with 20 /20 cricket. Most of my fellow members at the Oval dont even bother turning up for 20 /20 games. They feel its not ... " View all comments
Paul Wood on Grounds for divorce
"If Chester-le-Street was given a test against decent opposition rather than West Indies, Zimbabwe or Bangladesh it would sell tickets no problem. Also the tickets could be made more ... " View all comments
Brett Crighton on The Cape fits
"I cannot agree more with what Bob is saying. I think the weather was ultimately the biggest deciding factor as both South Africa and England both have the infrastructure to host the ... " View all comments