Kent County Cricket Club chairman George Kennedy has given resounding support to the England and Wales Cricket Board’s new structure for county cricket and plans for a Twenty20 EPL style extravaganza for 2010 including two overseas teams.

The new schedule will see the scrapping of the NatWest Pro40 Leagues at the end of the 2009 campaign, but the 50-over event, sponsored this year by Friends Provident will remain.

The Board also agreed a programme of 16 LV County Championship matches to be played in a two division structure and a Friday night Twenty20 League amongst all 18 counties as a qualifying tournament for the Champions League.

The new EPL will be staged in June 2010 ahead of the Twenty20 League in July, August and September which will include five home matches for each county.

Mr Kennedy, from Chilham, attended Tuesday’s meeting of the full ECB board at Lord’s and was delighted with the outcome.

He said: “By in large it worked well. I went there with the objective to protect county championship cricket and I think we have achieved that quite successfully.

“There is still a wee bit of confusion over the actual number of matches we will be playing in two years time, but whether it be 16 or 18, I think the schedule will be better.

“I don’t see that getting rid of the Pro40 will be seen as any great loss because the public seem to want more Twenty20. It’s where the money is, it’s drawing great crowds, it’s extremely popular with the supporters and the players and I can’t see that one more tournament of that will do any harm.

“We have yet to decide how the overseas teams will be allocated in each division, but that will be released nearer the time.”

The only negative outcome of the meeting from a Kent perspective is that, should they qualify for this year’s inaugural T20 Champions League event, all-rounder Justin Kemp could still potentially be barred from playing following his involvement in the Indian Cricket League.

Mr Kennedy added: “The Board seem hell bent on saying that the two English teams who get through to the world Twenty20 championship later this year wont be allowed to play players who have appeared in the ICL.

"That of course would mean that, should Kent qualify, Justin Kemp would not be permitted to play.

“We aren’t going to make any fuss about that until after next weekend’s finals day and see how we get on there.”