Second prize will be £45,000 and the clubs finishing third and fourth will win £22,000 and £15,000 respectively. Counties finishing from fifth to ninth will get no more than last year: rewards drop from £10,000 for finishing fifth to £6,000 for ninth. Divided among 11 or more players, that is only a small bonus but from this season every win in the championship will attract £2,000 compared with £1,000 last year.

The increased money will strengthen the case of those who argue that four-day county cricket is genuinely competitive and that no match is without incentive. Even bottom-of-the-table contests late in the season will have prize money at stake.

Opponents of a two-division championship gained an influential recruit yesterday when, in a foreword to the new Playfair Cricket Annual (£4.99), the coach of South Africa, Bob Woolmer, warns that it would be unlikely to produce stronger England teams.

He writes: ``I doubt that such a system will work because it will lead to a transfer system where the rich become richer and the poor poorer. This might lead to some counties going under.''

Instead, Woolmer calls for fewer matches and says they should be played on batsman-friendly pitches which teach bowlers the value of line and length.

Nottinghamshire have already topped £1 million in ticket receipts for this summer's fourth Test against South Africa and the first of the one-day triangular tournament matches between Sri Lanka and South Africa at Trent Bridge.