Cricket: Double headers to give fans a smashing time

This summer's T20 looks set to provide a great spectacle.

A more condensed domestic format, heavy with double header days - New Zealand Cricket have a new T20 receipt they hope will inject more spark into the competition this summer.

There's a name change - it's now the Georgie Pie Super Smash - and will run around this time slot in the cricket calendar for the next four seasons to give certainty in planning.

It starts on Saturday, with games blocked into double header weekends, with plenty of matches at neutral venues, and the final set down for Hamilton on December 7.

Auckland captain Rob Nicol believes the days when players found it difficult adjusting rapidly from one form of cricket to another, under more jumbled formats, are over.

NZC's general manager of domestic cricket David Cooper said anecdotal information backs that view but the players' sole focus will be on the shortest form for the next few weeks.

"We did a bit of work coming up with the right mix," he said. "We agreed collectively - NZC and the major associations - what we wanted our T20 competition to deliver and this format is delivering pretty much every part."

Cooper said the players are on board with the format, particularly liking the fact they'll be playing cricket over a full weekend, and that NZC are trying something new to beef up the competition.

Ticket prices are better value - depending on the venue $10 or $15 for two games in a day - and the second game of a day will start about 20 minutes after the first game ends, therefore trimming the waiting time, especially when evenings and younger children are concerned.

"We think it's a good proposition," Cooper said.

Indeed Cooper made it clear the second game in double header days, which in all bar one case will not involve the host team, is more aimed at a television audience than a match between sides who are going to attract a bumper crowd in their own right.

"We've been quite open this format is designed around TV," Cooper said. "We think it's a time we can maximise our TV audience (28 domestic games will be televised live this summer).

"At the moment 100,000-plus people are watching at home around the country, so we are conscious this is our new fan around T20. It's a balancing act around what we do at grounds."

The 50-over Ford Trophy competition starts on December 27, and is likely to be more heavily promoted than in the past. It will run through to February 1, whereupon the first-class Plunket Shield - which has two rounds shortly before Christmas - will resume in an unbroken seven-round run to the end of the season.

The schedule

• The renamed domestic T20 competition, the Georgie Pie Super Smash, starts in Hamilton on Saturday. There are double headers both days of the weekends.

• There's another brace of double headers at Seddon Park on the following weekend, then at Eden Park a week later followed by five games in Wellington and Napier on consecutive weekends.

• New Zealand Cricket have locked in this time of year for the T20 competition for the next four seasons to ensure continuity in planning.