The News

Blast cut, could Championship be next?

Blast finals day will move back to July

HARRY TRUMP/MICHAEL STEELE/BEN RADFORD/ALLSPORT/GETTY IMAGES

By Huw Turbervill

The future of the County Championship was still being debated as we went to press, although next year’s men’s T20 Blast has been reduced.

Proponents and opponents of 12, 13 and 14 four-day rounds have been expelling more hot air than a blast furnace for many months, with the ECB standing back and seeing what emerges.

There is an appetite for the Championship to be played alongside The Hundred in future years, although it is considered unfair on Surrey for now, because of the huge number of players they have to release to The Hundred. Somerset lose a lot too, but they are already keen.

There is a feeling that any changes need to be agreed upon by the start of September, for the fixtures come out in November. We Championship fans need to start booking our guesthouses.

So, here’s what is definitely happening… The counties will play two fewer men’s T20 Blast matches next season after the 18 first-class clubs agreed on a revamp. It will revert to three regional groups of six – which was the format for the first seven editions – but with each team playing 12 rather than 14 group matches.

The three regionalised groups will be: Group A – Derbyshire, Durham, Lancashire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire; Group B – Bears, Glamorgan, Gloucestershire, Northamptonshire, Somerset, Worcestershire; Group C – Essex, Hampshire, Kent, Middlesex, Surrey, Sussex.

Within the group stages, each county will play the other teams in their region home and away, as well as two matches against teams from the other two groups. This will be one home and one away and organised on a rolling basis, meaning teams will play against every other county over time.

The knockout stages will feature the top two from each group and the best two third-placed finishers. As has been the case under the current system, quarter-final winners will progress to Finals Day.

The knockout stages, which will remain as quarter-finals and a Finals Day, will now be played before The Hundred.

The options for the Championship are: things stay exactly as they are. We have the same-sized divisions of 10 and eight, but there is a reduction to 12 fixtures. Or, there is an option for 13 rounds. An insider says that this one is “a brilliant system that wins on every level.” There would be a top tier of 12 teams, consisting of two equal divisions of six. Then there is a lower one of six, with two teams going up each year. Teams will play the other five in their division, home and away, so 10 matches. Then a second round sees a three-team conference system, so three more matches. All points from the 13 matches go towards the title.

This still means that there would be seven matches in eight weeks at the start of the season, which would inevitably lead to seamer rotation and so on, a bugbear for many. But with a struggle to find a consensus, a loss of one round would at least be a concession to players who say that they are being run into the ground.

At the moment the 50-over game runs alongside The Hundred, but many clubs want to host Championship rounds. It makes sense for venues like Scarborough, where the population swells in the summer by 300 per cent. “When The Hundred becomes the world event that people say it will be, playing the Championship then would be viable,” said the source. “It won’t be long.”