YESTERDAY'S shake-up of English domestic cricket will not alter the status quo for Scotland and Ireland, with participation in the Friends Provident Trophy guaranteed for the foreseeable future but the Twenty20 game remaining off limits.

Cricket Scotland chief executive Roddy Smith said yesterday that he and his Irish counterpart, Warren Deutrom, asked to be included in the expansion of the Twenty20 Cup into an English Premier League, with the collateral effect of a separate 20-over league extending into July and August at the expense of the Pro40 competition.

However, the door swung shut for the Celtic nations at Lord's yesterday when a 20-team EPL, beginning in 2010, was unveiled, featuring just two overseas entities. Smith was convinced that one of the two franchises will be financed by Sir Allen Stanford, the Texan billionaire and West Indies fan, with the other likely to be picked up by a backer of comparable clout.

"We have a confirmed place in the ECB's domestic 50-over competition for the foreseeable future," said Smith, whose organisation makes little money from the FPT games, while the Twenty20 game is seen as an untapped resource. "Ourselves and Ireland both applied to the ECB about being involved in the EPL but were unsuccessful in doing so.

"Both of us had exploratory discussions with them but the practicalities were that the ECB were under pressure not to reduce the 18-county structure, and Stanford will obviously be involved in one of the overseas teams.

"For us it wasn't to be, which is fair enough. The ECB are under no obligation to do anything for us."

CS reached an agreement with the ECB last year in which they promised not to negotiate potentially lucrative TV deals for elite teams to play 'offshore' internationals against each other in this country, on the condition that England visit for a one-day international every four years and Scottish teams maintain county combat at various levels.

However, the cash cow of Twenty20 cricket remains out of reach, save for the national team's opportunity to qualify for the ICC's world event, next staged in England next summer.