This week the county cricket season gets underway in earnest (we'll ignore the frivolities of Sussex v MCC and the university matches). Given recent events in India, this could well be the last season as we know it.

The IPL has spread equal amounts of panic and excitement through the ranks of county moneymen: city teams, as proposed by the Surrey chief exec, seem a more likely prospect than ever before. Equally, the likes of Derbyshire and Leicestershire, not to mention Kent and Somerset, have reason to be more nervous than ever. Change is in the air, even in county cricket. You could smell it at the county press days: something is going to happen, and soon.

That being said, there are a surprising paucity of ideas as to where the domestic game goes next. City teams seem problematical to me: some of the country's cricket 'hot-spots' don't necessarily coalesce around a big city (and the game is arguably more popular in the countryside than in the cities). Yorkshire, for example: you won’t find many proud south Yorkshiremen following a Leeds team the way they would Yorkshire.

If we accept that things have to change, then this is my solution. There are two many county competitions, so the Pro40 goes, and is replaced by a Twenty20 league split into two halves (9 teams each), which runs through June and July into August. Teams play home and away. The top two teams from each league go into finals day. For the moment, the county championship and 50-over cup stay as they are. The quality has really improved in the former since two divisions came in.

As for this season, I think we're in for a repeat of last year: Sussex will win the title again; Kent will win one of the short-form titles (Twenty20 or Friend's Provident), and Durham the other. I'm not sure about the Pro40.