ANDREW Gale insists now is the time for English cricket to take the bull by the horns and incorporate a Twenty20 franchise competition into the domestic schedule.

The Yorkshire captain is one of many admirers of Australia’s ongoing Big Bash League, where eight teams play as cities instead of the usual states such as Victoria or New South Wales.

Interest has gone through the roof, with the New Year’s Eve clash between Adelaide and Hobart attracting a crowd of 43,000.

Although no English ground has the capability to match that crowd, the T20 Blast struggles for attendances. Yorkshire, for example, only regularly sell out their matches against Lancashire.

“I think eight to ten franchises here would be fine with a competition played over a three-week period,” said the left-handed batsman.

“That would mean a lot of counties would be made redundant during that time, but the money generated by the franchises would be far more significant than the 18 counties currently get.

“You could split the money equally and it could go into Academies, facilities and as far down as grassroots.

“I think if you can get the franchises so that wherever you live, they are within an hour and a half of your house, that would be perfect.”

Gale, who would start any such competition in early June just after the Indian Premier League has finished so as to attract the star names, continued: “How you name the franchises, I’m not sure, that’s down to the marketing people.

“A lot of people have said they’d never follow a Leeds franchise because they are Sheffield United football fans or Doncaster Rovers fans. For me, that’s irrelevant. We have to move on from that view.

“It might take a little bit of time to drag people along, but at the end of the day, what do they want to see? Do they want to see Chris Gayle, Kieron Pollard, Dhoni and Kohli?

“For me, it doesn’t matter what teams are called as long as the superstars are playing.

“You could name them after an area in a similar way they do in South Africa, the North West Rhinos, something like that.

“Watching the Big Bash last year when I was over there, it’s such a good spectacle.

I think the ECB have tried to improve every year on what they’ve got, but now’s the time to be bold.

“You never know, we could be looking at 15,000 at Headingley every week. At the moment, we are just treading water.”

As part of Gale’s plan, there would still be a county competition for players not selected by franchises but that would be played on club grounds, which would also increase interest in those areas.