Somerset begin selling memberships with 2011 format still up in the air

Somerset today started selling memberships for 2011 including eight home Twenty20 fixtures, even though the England and Wales Cricket Board will delay a final announcement on next season's structure until the middle of November. The ECB has set up a working party to discuss the recommendations of a meeting of officials from all 18 first-class counties at Lord's last week, when the future of the Twenty20 Cup was the thorniest issue. Many counties, led by the nine who regularly stage international cricket, want to revert to a 10-match programme, but Somerset's chief executive, Richard Gould, believes the ECB should and will stick to 16. "It is disappointing that there is no clarity," he told the Bristol Evening Post. "We are confident that the board will support the majority of its members who wish to retain Twenty20 as the lifeblood of county cricket. "We have worked hard to increase our income streams over recent years and to reduce our dependence on ECB handouts and we think it would be a huge mistake to reverse that. As a result, we are going on sale with our memberships [on Thursday] on the assumption that the T20 will be retained in a similar format. "We have no other choice because a decision in mid-November will not allow us sufficient time to get our packages out and on sale for our supporters in time for Christmas, which is a huge part of our sales. "It also means the fixture list is going to be even further delayed, which is going to have a knock-on effect on our corporate hospitality packages. In effect, we have lost a quarter of the business year at a time when we cannot afford to do so." Yorkshire are expected to confirm the re-signing of Ryan Sidebottom from Nottinghamshire on a three-year contract within the next few days, and Gloucestershire are resigned to losing their Zimbabwe-born seamer Anthony Ireland to Middlesex.