Radical proposals from Australia set to receive short shrift from English counties

CA's decision to play the final six rounds of next season's Ford Ranger Cup in an experimental split-innings arrangement comes as national boards around the world seek to reinvigorate a limited-overs game which has been squeezed by the surge of interest in Twenty20.

The England and Wales Cricket Board have been wrestling with the same issue themselves and this season dropped the traditional 50-over competition in favour of retaining the Clydesdale Bank 40 as well as introducing a two-innings knockout competition to the second XI calendar. The ECB have been canvassing the opinions of the sides involved in that tournament and will take a view at the end of the season as to if or how it can be continued, but initial signs suggest it may not be the answer in its current form.

Angus Porter, chief executive of the Professional Cricketers' Association, and the coaches of three county second XIs – Yorkshire's John Blain among them – have offered a consensus of opinion around a couple of potentially significant drawbacks.

Porter said: "Players are all for innovation too but it needs to be purposeful. You need to be clear that you're improving the game as a game to play and as a spectacle to watch.

"I think it's highly unlikely that the version we are playing in the second XI this year will get transferred across to the first XI competition. The early feedback is that people are saying 'we quite enjoy it but we're not quite sure what the point is'.

"I think one thing that is clear is that if you split an innings it is sometimes possible that the result of a one-sided game is clear much earlier and you know you have a bit of a non-event much earlier in the process. The other thing is if you split an innings in the middle it is not necessarily straightforward how you apply Duckworth/Lewis in rain-affected matches. There are some practical issues around that."

Blain, the Yorkshire second XI coach, backs experimentation with the idea but thinks Australian conditions may be more favourable to the concept.

He said: "I wouldn't pooh-pooh it and I think new ideas are good but it may be a difficult concept to apply in England because of the type of wickets we play on.

"Australia is probably in a slightly different situation because the wickets are a lot better there and with the weather and the quality of the Sheffield Shield, they will probably always get their 40 overs in."