Tuesday marks the start of the final Kia Super League which, after four years as the premier domestic women’s competition in England, will be replaced next season by the Women’s Hundred – part of a shake-up that will also result in the 50-over Women’s County Championship being supplanted by eight regional centres of excellence.

With women’s cricket under the microscope after England were dismantled in the Ashes series, a lot is riding on the success of the changes. The ECB director of women’s cricket, Clare Connor, admitted the disparity between the sides’ domestic structures was a “big contributing factor” to the defeat.

Since August 2017, professional contracts have been provided to all Australian women’s state players, while the English women’s county set-up has remained amateur. However, the ECB will invest £20m into women’s and girls’ cricket over the next two years to establish the centres of excellence made up of a consortium of several counties in each region. For example, Middlesex will host the London and East centre, which is likely to include players from Essex, Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire, Norfolk and Suffolk.

The centres, which will be set up in October and also have feeder academies, will provide year-round training and coaching support for domestic players, who will become semi-professional. The centres will play each other in their 50-over and 20-over competitions.

In an email sent to the counties last week and seen by the Guardian, Connor states the eight centres will “geographically align with the eight women’s teams that will compete in The Hundred” and that coaching and support staff will be sub-contracted to the Hundred franchises.

This appears to confirm the Women’s Hundred teams will have their home at different grounds to the men: for example Taunton is likely to host to both the “Western Fire” Women’s Hundred side and the “South West and Wales” centre of excellence whereas the men will be based in Cardiff.

The email also confirms the ECB, having threatened to withdraw funding from women’s county cricket, will continue to run a women’s county Twenty20 competition next year and 2021.

Richard Bedbrook, the coach of Surrey Women and the Surrey Stars KSL team, says the changes are “very exciting”. He said: “It will allow players the opportunity of really taking the next steps, from all their cricketing skills to their physical condition to then hopefully bridging the gap with the mental side of it, and allowing them to challenge for the England squad.

“If you keep streamlining the talent pool, you create more competition because the teams are much more evenly balanced. The games are played between the best players at the highest standard and therefore more pressure moments occur.”

For the England squad, who spend all their time in a “Loughborough bubble”, the centres will provide a much-needed fresh environment. For domestic players, who have always had to juggle work or study with cricket while receiving no remuneration, the revamp is also welcome.

“You put in so much effort for so many years, and the fact that now you might actually get a chance to be rewarded for your efforts all year round and become that bit more professional is amazing,” said the 24-year-old batter Aylish Cranstone, who plays for Surrey at county level and in the KSL.

There remains widespread concern about the replacement of the Super League with the Women’s Hundred. The KSL attracted more than 40,000 fans to matches across the past two seasons, including two sellout Finals Days at Hove. Players such as Kirstie Gordon, Sophia Dunkley and most recently Mady Villiers have made international debuts largely as a result of impressive performances in the Super League.

Cranstone feels she has benefitted enormously from “being around high-level players – seeing how they train, how they go about things and how they deal with high-pressure situations” and admits she is concerned about the future.

“It’s taken a few years to get a real fanbase,” she says. “We’ve got Surrey fans and they’ll always be loyal to Surrey but for the other franchises, say Western Storm or Loughborough Lightning, they’ve really gained a fan base that will just come to see them. So it’s upsetting that that’s grown year on year and developed, and that’s now not going to be there any more.”

Another area of concern is the lack of information provided to players regarding the amount they can expect to earn and the time commitment required should they win a place at one of the centres. Katie Levick, the Yorkshire Diamonds leg-spinner who juggles cricket with her role as a marketing manager, said: “It’s causing a few headaches from a work perspective!”

One thing is certain. The changes represent the biggest shake-up domestic women’s cricket in England has ever seen. The final season of the KSL looks set to be given added impetus as players seek to make their case for inclusion in the new semi-professional setup.