Hampshire director of cricket Giles White wants the County Championship to be restructured to make room for a new domestic T20 league.

Chairman Rod Bransgrove and batsman Michael Carberry have both spoken in favour of introducing a T20 franchise competition similar in format to the IPL and Big Bash, where there are only eight teams in each event.

And White agrees, with a new era under the ECB’s chairman-elect, Colin Graves, set to begin in May.

He said: “It’s a good opportunity to change things with a new chairman coming in, but to fit in a new T20 comp the structure of County Championship cricket would also have to change.

“We should bring in three divisions of six so we’re playing ten Championship matches instead of 16, which would free up a month of cricket in which we can play another T20 competition.

“That way we could keep the Friday night comp so every county would be playing at least some T20 cricket. And we would have a new competition which could attract a new audience to the game. We’ve seen a lot of women and children at the Big Bash and that would be great for cricket over here.”

White’s proposal for ten first class games would see a maximum of 40 days of Championship cricket – compared to the current number of 64.

There are more days of Championship cricket under the current structure than there were back in the 1970s.

In 1975 counties played 20 three-day games for a total of 60 days.

There was obviously a lot more Championship cricket played prior to the introduction of one day games in the early 1960s.

In 1955, counties played 28 three-day games – for a total of 84 days cricket.