A new, NFL-draft style Twenty20 competition is set to be introduced into English domestic cricket.

The decision to go ahead with the proposal received an overwhelming vote, which could see the competition start as early as 2018.

It’s an eight-team tournament which would be added to the English cricket calendar along with the existing 18-team T20 Blast, and the England Cricket Board’s plan is to rival it to the Indian Premier League and Australia’s Big Bash League.

The tournament will take place at city-based Test grounds, although the new teams themselves will not necessarily feature cities in their names.

ECB chairman Colin Graves said: ‘We’ve all been looking at how we can use domestic T20 for an even bigger purpose, especially getting more young people to play.

‘We’ve talked to each county individually about the need for change. The next steps for us all, as a game, will be to extend the discussions and get valuable input from players, members and other key voices across the game.’

The eight teams will contain a certain amount of overseas players, along with other players selected from the 18 counties, and it’s planned be across two to three weeks to allow all international players to play

Photo: Phillip Brown/Getty Images