ANDREW Gale believes a return of domestic cricket to free-to-air television would increase the popularity of England's NatWest T20 Blast competition.

The Yorkshire captain revealed earlier this week that he is keen to see English cricket's Twenty20 competition revamped from 18 counties to eight or ten franchises in order to increase the chances of bigger crowds.

He is a particular fan of Australia's ongoing Big Bash League – which is played out between eight teams named after cities such as Melbourne, Sydney and Hobart, where Headingley all-rounder Tim Bresnan is set to start a short spell today.

Crowds for matches regularly top 20,000, whereas such attendances in England are virtually unheard of.

The Australian weather is a big advantage, while all of their matches are screened on Channel Ten, a free-to-air station.

Sky Sports are currently the sole rights holder for English domestic cricket, yet they only show one match a night when sometimes there could be nine played.

"It could be a scenario which you have in football at the minute where Sky split the rights," said Gale.

"There's no reason why you can't split the games between Sky and BBC or Channel Four.

"There's so much cricket on, there's enough to go around. Even with ten franchises, there'd still be enough.

"With the Big Bash, everyone watches it because it's 7pm on free-to-air every night, and it increases interest, which could in turn boost attendances.

"What would you rather watch, Coronation Street or the cricket?"