Mark Arthur has revealed how himself and Martyn Moxon have put forward the idea of a Conference style format to reinvigorate the County Championship.

Yorkshire’s Chief Executive and Director of Cricket have formulated a plan for three Conferences of six teams, which they believe could start in the summer of 2020.

Their plan, purely from a personal and not club point of view, would see each team play 15 Championship matches a season, one more than is presently played, and would see the overall champion county receive £1m in prize money.

It was reported yesterday that a handful of other counties are in favour of such an idea.

Arthur believes it would create more competition and interest in county cricket, not just Championship cricket, with counties playing for the title or prize money right through until the final round of matches.

“Martyn Moxon and I put it forward to the ECB a couple of months ago,” he explained, insisting that this would work hand in hand with the new city T20 competition to boost the game’s profile.

“We put it forward purely from a personal point of view, not from a Yorkshire point of view.

“We feel that it would keep everybody engaged in the game because there are certain counties that feel threatened – wrongly, in my opinion – by the new T20 city competition.

“We believe in 18 first-class counties, and this would keep everybody together.”

Related News

View all news
Will Luxton

Yorkshire 2nd XI vs Essex 2nd XI - Match Report

Essex won the toss and asked Yorkshire to bat first. Skipper, Noah Kelly was the first wicket to fall with the score on 19 – he was caught at 3rd slip for 4 made from 25 balls. His opening partner, Will Luxton continued his fine form from last week but having made 47 from 51 balls with 6 fours he was caught behind – 59-2

Read more

Report: Essex v Yorkshire Men, Rothesay CC – Day Two

George Hill returned a superb 6-51, including four wickets today, as Yorkshire expertly took hold of their Rothesay County Championship clash with Essex at its midway point at the Ambassador Cruise Line Ground, Chelmsford.

Read more

Sign up to our newsletter

For all the latest news, previews, ticket, membership and Premium Experiences information and more exciting content from Yorkshire Cricket and the Northern Diamonds straight to your inbox, subscribe now.

To view our privacy policy, click here.