Wakely in favour of limited overs alterations

With the County Championship remaining in its current format, the alterations will affect the Twenty20 and the longer limited overs competitions.

The former will become a 14-game tournament spread over a much longer period of time as opposed to a 10-game event condensed into a month, primarily to ensure there is a regular slot for the fixtures.

And the latter will become a 50-over competition to mirror the international game which has signalled the end of the 40-over format.

While the majority seem to be in favour of the Twenty20 alterations, the reception has been mixed for the longer game but Wakely, who captains Northamptonshire in all white ball cricket, thinks that the correct schedule has been arrived at.

He said: “The switch with the Twenty20 is the right one.

“We saw what the crowds were like here on Friday nights and hopefully with more games being played at that time we can get more people coming to watch us on a consistent basis.

“And we should be playing the same as international cricket.

“You could have easily got to the stage where players were playing for England having hardly played any 50-over matches and that can’t be right.

“So I think that this is the right way to go for the county game.”

As for his own side, who enjoyed a spectacular resurgence in their coloured clothes from the misery of 2012, Wakely is of the opinion that only a few minor adjustments will need to be made during the off-season.

He added: “We’ll do things pretty much the same.

“There will be a few changes necessary for the 50-over game and we’ll have to come up with slightly different plans or consider using different players for certain roles.

“But we’ll prepare in the winter like we did last year by working on our one-day cricket to ensure that we’re ready for it next season.”