While Cricket Australia is committed to a full quota of one-day matches against England this summer and India next season, there will be an opportunity to completely revamp the cricket calendar from March 2013.
Players want this to involve clearing most of January so they can participate in the new eight-team, city-based competition, which was approved at a CA board meeting in Melbourne yesterday.
However, CA is reluctant to commit to a reduction in one-day cricket, fearing it will not be made up by the expanded Big Bash, despite promising projections running to tens of millions of dollars.
CA chief executive James Sutherland said there was "great merit" in Australia's best players being available for the competition.
"Obviously, that needs to be balanced with our commitments to international cricket, and as we've always said, we want Twenty20 cricket to complement not compromise international cricket," Sutherland said.
Australia's best players eventually want fewer one-day internationals so they can be part of the expanded Twenty20 Big Bash competition when the television rights deal expires in a little more than two years' time.
Big Bash crowds began to outstrip one-day international crowds in the 2009-2010 summer, but CA is committed to the current format with the Nine Network until the end of the 2012-13 season.
Sutherland confirmed that an AFL-style draft was one of the options to ensure the two new teams have adequate talent to be competitive, but the ACA strongly opposes the draft or any other restrictions on player movement, claiming it is illegal under restraint-of-trade laws.
"Given that each team will have a salary cap, ACA is of the belief that Australian cricket has a responsibility to ensure that this is largely distributed to Australian players."
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