The club based regional competition is the first of its kind to be held in Victoria.

Central Highlands regional cricket manager Ben Oliver, who thought of the idea, is delighted to have secured Cricket Willow as the major sponsor with a first prize of $1000.

Mr Oliver is looking forward to seeing the competition unfold over the coming weeks.

"It represents a fantastic opportunity for clubs in the Central Highlands to benefit from the Twenty20 phenomenon," he said.

"The format is a bit like the FA Cup in soccer and is a first for Victorian cricket."

Mr Oliver said Twenty20 cricket had been extremely successful in the UK over the past three seasons and was set to explode in Australia following the inaugural Twenty20 international in Brisbane on Monday, January 9.

As the name suggests, each side bats for an action-packed innings of 20 overs.

Other features include "free hits" for foot-fault no balls, overs bowled in "five-over blocks" from each end, incoming batsmen being "timed out" if they take more than 90 seconds to face up and a "bowl-out" to decide tied or

no-result games.

A club from each of the Ballarat, Grampians, Maryborough, Daylesford, Gisborne, Castlemaine, Pyrenees and Grenville associations will qualify for the quarter-finals to be played in Ballarat on Sunday, January 22.

Mt Clear and North Castlemaine have both made it through to the finals with wins in their respective competitions.

Other qualifying clubs will be finalised in the coming days.

The semi-finals will also be played in Ballarat on January 22 and then the top two teams will play off for the first prize at the picturesque Cricket Willow oval on Australia Day, Thursday, January 26.

The Australia Day festivities will kick off with Family Super 6s cricket from 10am.

The Cricket Willow Cup final will get underway at 2pm.