It will be the cricketing equivalent of merging Arsenal and Tottenham if traditional county foes are paired off to create a streamlined Twenty20 Premier League.

Hampshire chairman Rod Bransgrove's analogy is an apt depiction of the tightrope English cricket must tread - and quickly - if it is to avoid being left behind in the Twenty20 revolution.

County chief executives and chairmen were responding to the latest vision of how Twenty20 should be revamped in this country to maximise the potential already being exploited by the Indian cricket and premier leagues.

Central to the arguments and counter-arguments are the huge amounts of money which may accrue, the parochial traditions in areas such as Yorkshire and Lancashire - and the vested interests which prevail.

Bransgrove pinpointed one such as he considered the latest Twenty20 vision, of an eight-team league cutting across many county boundaries - attributed to Professional Cricketers' Association chief executive Sean Morris.

"It is difficult to see Hampshire and Sussex being the same team, as it is with Yorkshire and Lancashire - because it would be like putting Arsenal and Tottenham together," he reasoned.

Bransgrove warns that, whatever decisions are made, they must follow an effective public consultation - as was the case before the initial Twenty20 competition was founded five years ago.

"With Twenty20, I don't think we can afford to make any assumptions or rule anything in or out," he said.

"But the one thing I would say is this must be properly researched, so that we are as sure as we can be we are choosing the right way forward.

"We need to know what the customers really want. If we do what we did at the start of Twenty20 - talk to the customers and find out what they want - we won't go far wrong."

Bransgrove was one of several voices on the same subject today, and his colleagues are stirringly unequivocal about protection of their home brand.

The likelihood of an eight-team Premier League, backed by Texan billionaire Allen Stanford and perhaps with a feeder division, is strong in what is likely to become more and more a world of haves and have-nots.

Among those who have been made it abundantly clear they do not favour unification with long-standing opponents or powerful neighbours are Yorkshire and Durham chief executives Stewart Regan and David Harker.

Bransgrove and Lancashire chief executive Jim Cumbes fall into a less entrenched bracket - although all appear sceptical at best over becoming a regional band of brothers.

There is no need to second-guess Regan.

"I don't think Yorkshire and Lancashire would play as a merged side," he spells out.

"That wouldn't appeal to me; I don't think it would appeal to our fans - and it certainly wouldn't appeal to our players.

"I don't want to take Yorkshire into something that involves a new identity and mixing up with other teams.

"We are Yorkshire County Cricket Club and we want to be part of the solution, not jumping in with AN Other party."

At the centre of Regan's rationale is the depth of tradition and marketability of of cricket in his county.

"We have probably got the strongest identity of any of the counties.

"Yorkshire people are Yorkshire through and through. The chant in Yorkshire at football, cricket or rugby grounds is 'Yorkshire, Yorkshire'.

"Our identity is very strong. A North team just doesn't have an identity."

Regan is predictably anxious that his club makes the most of the land of opportunity.

"If you were to divide the country into, say, eight zones, to participate in this Super League, then Yorkshire - given the size of it - could quite easily be one of those zones in its entirety," he predicted.

"Greater London could possibly be another one.

"This is a county with 1,000 cricket clubs. Fifteen per cent of the cricket played in the country is played in Yorkshire, and there are five million people in the county - so we have something different here to other counties."

Regan unsurprisingly prescribes a condensed Twenty20, with mergers elsewhere, placing Yorkshire and other clubs with Test grounds at the centre.

Bransgrove and Cumbes are keen on a two-tier format with promotion and relegation.

But the latter - like Regan not an instinctive fan of a Roses amalgam - is equally concerned by time constraints which mean the England and Wales Cricket Board cannot afford to hesitate before decisions are made.

"Sitting in the second city with 11 million people within an hour's drive, I don't think we actually need regional cricket in this part of the world - and I think Yorkshire think the same way," he said.

"But clearly we have to get our thinking caps on and get into gear on this.

"If not, we'll be left behind.

"I'm not saying the board aren't doing anything about it. I'm sure they are and they're hard pressed. But we need to move forward as early as possible - and I'm not sure 2010 is early enough."

If that stealthy progress is to be made, though, compromises will have to be struck somewhere - if not between the likes of Cumbes and Regan, then perhaps with such as Harker.

Yet the Durham boss is equally disinclined to cede his county's growing brand.

"My gut reaction is to be dead set against it for a couple of reasons," he said.

"To throw us into a bucket with Yorkshire and Lancashire would be wrong.

"We are 90 miles from Headingley and 120 miles from Old Trafford. So what connection do we have with those places?"

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