IPL hysteria is difficult to escape from at the moment and if England’s board plan their alternative event astutely they could create something equally attractive.

The big talking point within the English cricket fraternity for the last month or so has been how England’s bigwigs can keep their senior players like Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff happy while also protecting their own domestic cricket and not altering their touring commitments.

With only one England player involved in the lucrative IPL Dimitri Mascarenhas, the England players are having to forego huge pay packets. Although the players are generally sounding sympathetic towards their England and Wales Cricket Board bosses, it is not difficult to detect a gradual move towards wanting a piece of the IPL action.

However, although the ECB are unlikely to deliver an event financially on par with the Indians purely because of the television rights revenue being so high in India with the exposure brands are able to receive through the sheer volume, they may get close.

A similar but not identical model is required and as some ECB officials have said, the English summer is unique in the cricket world in that few bilateral series are ongoing at the same time meaning greater availability of the best players. The injection of money from Antigua-based Texan billionaire Allen Stanford would clearly add greater clout to the ECB’s versio of the IPL. I am reluctant to term it the ‘EPL’ as this is referred to frequently in Asia but nothing to do with cricket but that is how the English Premier League (soccer) is known.  

So, how should they set it up? Here’s how: Forget the age-old shires. Many counties carry an old fashioned image and for an event that has to be forward-looking, city representative teams is the way to go. 1) London, 2) Birmingham, 3) Manchester, 4) Newcastle, 5) Bristol, 6) Leeds, 7) Stanford Caribbean, 8) Southampton 9) Nottingham, 10) Cardiff (cities may differ).

The teams should play each other once and the top two enter a best of three final. I am against rewarding the top four because the possibility of fourth beating first to win the whole competition seems ludicrous.

There have been doubts as to whether the money is present in English cricket to stage such an ambitious competition but I have no doubts that the IPL way is the best way and encourage entrepreneurs to step forward. I would be surprised if Rod Bransgrove would not be at all interested in owning the Southampton franchise, given that he owns The Rose Bowl where Hampshire play.

Then you have film industry figures (movie director Sam Mendes), footballers (David Beckham), TV celebrities (Chris Tarrant), cricket-loving expatriate Asian business magnates, pop and rock stars (Mick Jagger and Bill Wyman), politicians (John Major) and business figures most of us have never heard of but who would be keen to get involved. Not forgetting Stanford’s millions, of course.   

One English county chief executive doubted whether the world’s top players would come to play in the English version of the IPL when the salaries would be far inferior. But two things: find the right franchise owners by expressions of interest, closed bids whatever, and the money can be there and the players will follow. It may be harsh to suggest players are greedy but they are certainly keen to maximise their earning opportunities and the option of playing a month’s Twenty20 in England after the same in India would not deter most players – on the contrary.  

Commercial support would be there from a Sky, a Setanta or maybe an Asian-backed company already having a base in the UK such as Zee or ARY. Sponsorship of various connecting properties would also be there - whether the companies are banks, insurance companies or from the food and beverage industry, if the viewership and demand for the product is there, the backing will also be there.

Counties worried they are being cut out of the revenue can earn their corn by staging matches, earn incentives for having their players appear to show their development or cricket structure is sound and contribute with local revenue-generating ideas.

So let’s have a little fun with the possibilities: Unlike with the IPL that has allowed home city boys to play for other franchises I would oppose that as much as possible to ensure fans plump for their own cities and heroes and identify with the team most local to them. The fact Punjabi hero Harbhajan Singh is playing in Mumbai and not for his local franchise Mohali is tough to digest, similarly with south Indian Sreeanth playing for Mohali and there are other examples. I would make each franchise register at least two ‘Local Legends’ as well as allowing three overseas players per team to give more opportunities to England-qualified players and an unlimited amount per squad, plus three Under-23 players in the team and the rest floating.

NB. Why not be completely radical and offer the same franchise and innovative model for a streamlined 50-over competition? Who really cares about the current system now that Twenty20 has arrived? Even ODI’s at 50 overs will be increasingly hard to sell in the future. One thing’s for certain: 40-over events have to go, yesterday.

LONDON:

Locals Legends: Andrew Strauss (captain), Alastair Cook, Owais Shah 

Certain Others: Ravi Bopara, Robert Key, James Tredwell            

Possible Overseas: Harbhajan Singh, Mark Boucher, Irfan Pathan, Danish Kaneria, Rahul Dravid.

SOUTHAMPTON:

Local Legends: Kevin Pietersen (captain), Dimitri Mascarenhas, Chris Tremlett 

Certain Others: Michael Carberry, Nic Pothas,

Possible Overseas: Stuart Clark, Shane Warne, Michael Clarke, Shane Watson, Matthew Hayden.

CARDIFF:

Local Legends: Simon Jones (captain), Robert Croft, Michael Powell

Certain Others: David Hemp, Mark Wallace, Alex Wharf                            

Possible Overseas: Herschelle Gibbs, Jacques Kallis, Brendon McCullum, Jacob Oram, Robin Uthappa.

NEWCASTLE:

Local Legeds: Paul Collingwood (captain), Steve Harmison, Liam Plunkett                                                                                                       

Certain Others: Phil Mustard, Graham Onions

Possible Overseas: Mike Hussey, Adam Gilchrist, Rohit Sharma, Gautam Gambhir   

NOTTINGHAM:

Local Legends: Chris Read (captain), Ryan Sidebottom, Graeme Swann, Stuart Broad                                                                        

Certain Others: Charlie Shreck                                                     

Possible Overseas: Shahid Afridi, Mohammad Asif, Virender Sehwag, David Husey

LEEDS:

Local Legends: Michael Vaughan (captain), Matthew Hoggard, Adil Rashid

Certain Others: Craig White, Tim Bresnan, Anthony McGrath        

Possible Overseas: Sachin Tendulkar, Younis Khan, Mohammed Yousuf, Yuvraj Singh, Morne Morkel

BIRMINGHAM:

Local Legends: Ian Bell, Tim Ambrose, Darren Maddy

Certain Others: Kabir Ali, Vikram Solanki, Steven Davies, Jonathan Trott

Possible Overseas: Dale Steyn, Kumar Sangakkara, Daniel Vettori, Shaun Pollock. 

BRISTOL:

Local Legends: Marcus Trescothick (captain), Ian Blackwell, Jon Lewis

Certain Others: Alex Gidman, Steve Kirby                                     

Possible Overseas: Ricky Ponting, Shoaib Malik, Graeme Smith, AB de Villiers.   

MANCHESTER:

Local Legends: Andrew Flintoff (captain), James Anderson, Sajid Mahmood

Certain Others: Stuart Law, Mal Loye, Glenn Chapple                      

Possible Overseas: Muttiah Muralitharan, Andrew Symonds, VVS Laxman, Brett Lee.   

STANFORD CARIBBEAN:                                                             

Possible: Chris Gayle, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Jerome Taylor, Marlon Samuels, Denesh Ramdin, Dwayne Bravo, Daren Powell, Dave Mohammed, Pedro Collins, Ryan Hinds, Ian Bradshaw, Dwayne Smith, Darren Sammy.

Richard Sydenham is Managing Editor of Bigstarcricket.com

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