Michael Vaughan: 'There's a lot of money at stake for both players and counties and authorities'.
Michael Vaughan has voiced his concerns that the proposed Twenty20 Champions League could be detrimental to first-class cricket.
On Saturday, an outline of the tournament was released by the ECB and there will be 15 matches played over 10 days in either the Middle East or India. Only the participants from England have yet to be decided, with the two finalists from the Twenty20 Cup earning the right to play for US$5million.
That level of prize money dwarfs domestic cricket; the winners of the County Championship currently receive £100,000 for a tournament that takes five months and 18 matches to complete.
"It is exciting, it certainly puts a lot more pressure on the county Twenty20 starting on Wednesday," said Vaughan. "My only fear is that it will become the ultimate competition, because it's such a carrot at the end of the summer and counties might start developing the Twenty20 team as the ultimate importance, rather than developing the four-day team. That's my only concern.
"There's a lot of money at stake for both players and counties and authorities, but I just hope by doing these kind of events, that the ultimate [county] team is not the Twenty20 team, but the four-day team and the 50-over team because that's where you get your ultimate test."
England's one-day squad have been made available for the opening round of Twenty20 matches, but will then be absent for the rest of the qualifiers. Vaughan, however, will be available for Yorkshire and has stated his aim of wanting to play more domestic Twenty20.
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