World Twenty20 Success Enables Ecb to Focus on Home

England's staging of the second World Twenty20 tournament has been a huge financial success – and the England and Wales Cricket Board are set to turn down the chance to organise an overseas edition of the Indian Premier League in favour of promoting their own domestic tournament.

Just under 96 per cent of the available tickets have been sold for the games at Lord's, The Oval and Trent Bridge, which have reached record television audiences – an estimated global audience of 400 million watched India lose to England in the group stages.

The inaugural event in 2007 struggled to sell enough tickets to make up the International Cricket Council's minimum guarantee of $2m (£1.2m) to South Africa for hosting the competition. At this year's tournament, though, the final warm-up day alone matched that amount. This was because the ECB could charge as much as £60 a ticket and still attract 23,000 to The Oval for India's warm-up meeting with Pakistan and sell 10,000 Lord's tickets for South Africa's meeting with Sri Lanka. Total gate receipts are thought to be in the region of £15m.

Lalit Modi, the IPL commissioner, plans to play two editions of the tournament "from 2011", he told the Observer. But although the unqualified success of the World Twenty20 makes England the only viable commercial option – the recent IPL played in South Africa attracted disappointing crowds – the ECB are thought to be resistant to Modi as the domestic governing body launches its own second T20 competition next season, the P20.

"We'll have to see the availability of the dates. We wouldn't be in a position to do it next year because after the IPL is the [T20] World Cup in the West Indies," Modi said. "So I don't think we will move to across the world then but we'll definitely try and aim for 2011."

The ECB, while declining to comment, are more intent on promoting the P20 next season while continuing to discuss with the Indian, South African and Australian boards how best to arrange an international calendar which could include a global event every two years.

Those would be the World Cup and World T20, which means the Champions Trophy should eventually be phased out – next year's World T20 will be played in the West Indies in what was originally a window allocated to that competition by the ICC.

This year's IPL was moved from India to be played in South Africa because of security concerns following the attack by gunmen on the Sri Lanka team coach in Pakistan in March. Modi, though, is adamant the IPL will take place in India next season. "Absolutely confident, we'll always want the main season in India. And we are looking at taking a second season around the world."

Despite the commercial success of this year's World T20, the ICC has not yet planned where the next tournament beyond the West Indies will be contested. This has prevented the ECB from bidding to stage the competition again.