Tamper with county championship at your peril, Regan warns

The make-up of the county season is the subject of an ongoing consultation process involving the England and Wales Cricket Board, with changes to the championship top of the reform agenda.

Regan has made it clear that Yorkshire will fight plans to abandon the current two-divisional structure, arguing that it performs a vital role in developing Test players.

Speaking at the launch of the Yorkshire Cricket Mela, a series of events to celebrate cricket, culture, diversity, community and commerce in the region, Regan also stressed the need for England to move with the times on domestic Twenty20 cricket.

The Professional Cricketers' Association yesterday called on the ECB to reconsider the merits of a three-division championship while at the same time stressing that its members had voiced considerable support for maintaining the current format.

That is the stance preferred by Regan, who represented Yorkshire at this week's meeting of counties with Test match grounds to explore new revenue streams.

"There's quite a lot of disillusionment about the options being put forward in the consultation paper circulated by the ECB to the counties," he said. "I know a number of counties have expressed their concern.

"We need to look at the potential financial implications of a reduction in the championship through a loss of membership, for example, as well as the impact on the game of cricket as a whole.

"It doesn't bring in the sort of money that Twenty20 brings in, but nevertheless it has different objectives - it's here to develop future England cricketers.

"I don't think anybody has quite fully understood how many games are required for a player to develop to the highest possible levels.

"We at Yorkshire feel that 16 county championship games in a two-divisional structure has worked really well.

"The last few years have seen some really exciting climaxes to the season, at both ends of the table, and I think the introduction of 16 points for a win has made a massive difference to how captains are approaching the game - they're much more aggressive and keen to get a result.

"I think we've got an exciting competition and one which we should tamper with at our peril."

Regan, who attended a fact-finding meeting with the IPL's now suspended commissioner Lalit Modi earlier this year, believes it is time the country got serious about Twenty20 cricket and, in the wake of England's World Cup success in the West Indies, says the timing is right for a bold new approach.

"I'd like us to be able to develop the game of Twenty20 in this country and see if we can make as much success of it as other countries have managed to do," he said.

"At the end of the day, we're the country that invented it and we should be leading from the front.

"England have just won the Twenty20 World Cup and we're on the crest of a wave at the moment.

"We're all realising the commercial value that Twenty20 cricket can bring to what is a very difficult economic time for county clubs. We've got to make the most of it in every way we can.

"The category A venues are putting together a report for the ECB Board which will be ready by the end of July and we're hoping to make a series of recommendations about how the game in this country should be developed.

"All the category A venues are finding it hard at the moment to satisfy their financial obligations so we are keen to explore how we generate new revenues.

"In Twenty20, we have a game that undoubtedly people want to watch, a game broadcasters want to put on TV and a game sponsors want to back and we need to make sure that we capture the opportunity to take it to the next level."

Regan expressed his disappointment that the English counties will have no involvement in the end-of-season Champions League because of a clash of dates.

"It's something we'll be discussing as a board at Yorkshire and we'll be making our feelings known to the ECB on that," he said.

"At the end of the day, a lot of investment has been made in players to participate in this season's competition and, if the riches on offer - which are in the region of two and a half million US dollars - cannot be accessed, it's a real shame for the English game."