Cricket-New Zealand to expand domestic Twenty20 league

WELLINGTON, July 13 (Reuters) - New Zealand is expanding its domestic Twenty20 competition to improve the chances of fielding a globally competitive team in the lucrative format.

The South Pacific nation's six cricket associations would play each other twice over the 2009/10 summer, after the league only played eight games last year, New Zealand Cricket (NZC) chairman Justin Vaughan told local radio.

"I think everyone appreciates that Twenty20 is the hot ticket for cricket at the moment," Vaughan said.

"We've been growing the competition year-on-year but we've never really cracked it... We want to make sure our Twenty20 competition next summer has real substance to it."

New Zealand fared poorly at last month's Twenty20 World Cup in England, going out of the competition during the Super Eights phase after only registering victories over non-test playing nations Scotland and Ireland. (Reporting by Ian Ransom in Melbourne; Editing by John O'Brien; To comment on this story email sportsfeedback@thomsonreuters.com)