County Championship to have more June and July matches in 2022; Vitality Blast to finish in July before The Hundred

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The 20th edition of the Vitality Blast will run over a seven-week period from May to July, with the Royal London Cup returning to a Saturday final and taking place in August and September; The new season of the County Championship begins on April 7

The England and Wales Cricket Board has confirmed the 2022 matches for the county men’s and women’s regional domestic competitions, with more county championship matches due to be played during June and July than during the previous campaign.

Five rounds of county championship games will be played during June and July, two more than during the same period last summer.

There have been calls for more red ball cricket in the height of summer after England’s torrid Ashes campaign and Neil Snowball, the ECB’s managing director of county cricket, said there could be even more change next season.

“The match schedule is a step up from last year, but don’t expect this schedule to be all we need to tackle some of the challenges of red ball cricket,” Snowball said.

“It needs a thorough review. I think there’s a feeling that we don’t have the right balance (between the formats) right now and that’s what we need to look at. We know there’s no silver bullet.”

Warwickshire are the reigning champions of the LV= Insurance County Championship

“There’s been a lot of talk about all the different things we need to consider, whether it’s what kind of ball we use,
what kind of fields we play on, the format of the competitions, etc.

“We need to get the first class counties, the ECB, the PCA (Professional Cricket Players Association) and the other stakeholders together and then come up with a plan during this year hopefully so that we can start to make some changes from of 2023. There is an absolute commitment to do it”.

The Division One and Division Two titles will be decided when the final round of matches takes place on September 26-29.

Defending champions Warwickshire host Surrey in the first round of matches when the men’s domestic summer kicks off on April 7, with matches played from Thursday to Sunday for seven successive weeks to mark the start of the season.

The Vitality Blast, which this year marks the 20th edition of the T20 competition, will run over a seven-week period from May 25 to July 16, with Edgbaston hosting Finals Day while the Royal London Cup takes place. will play from August 2 to September 17. and will have its end at Trent Bridge.

The 20+ Charlotte Edwards Cup will open the women’s regional summer from May 14 and offer the first national silver piece, with Finals Day at The County Ground, Northampton on June 11.

A bumper summer for women’s cricket includes the Commonwealth Games, The Hundred and a packed England women’s schedule, while the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Over-50 Trophy kicks off on July 2 and will conclude with a spectacular final at Lord’s on Sunday September 25.

This year will be the first time in the four-day game that 10 counties will play in Division One and eight in Division Two since the recommendations of the 2018 National Game Program review were unanimously agreed upon by the first-class counties.

The 2020 Bob Willis Trophy and the 2021 County Championship were played in a group stage format to mitigate the risk of the Covid-19 pandemic, although the first-class counties voted to return to two divisions at the end of the season. pass. The Bob Willis Trophy final, a five-day match between the top two teams in Division One, will not take place this season.

Lancashire, Gloucestershire and Northamptonshire are promoted from their 2019 rankings, joining Essex, Hampshire, Kent, Lancashire, Somerset, Surrey, Warwickshire and Yorkshire in Division One. Nottinghamshire is relegated to Division Two as part of the transition to Model 10: 8, competing against Derbyshire, Durham, Glamorgan, Leicestershire, Middlesex, Sussex and Worcestershire in 2022.

The Vitality Blast begins with a rematch of last year’s final, with champions Kent Spitfires hosting Somerset on May 25, with the group stage played over a 40-day period and 99 of the 126 matches taking place on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. or on Sunday.

The quarter-finals will take place from July 6-9 before the sold-out Finals Day takes place in Edgbaston a week later, with the tournament concluding before the start of The Hundred competition.

There will be 10 doubleheaders when the Charlotte Edwards Cup and Vitality Blast T20 matches are played back-to-back at the same venue, with the month-long women’s T20 competition in which eight regional teams will be divided into two groups for six matches of all against everyone. .

Southern Vipers will attempt to claim a hat-trick of Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy titles when the 50+ competition begins on July 2. Each team will play each other once during the group stage, with second and third place facing off in a Playoff four days from the Lord’s Final.

Each of the 18 first-class counties will play at least one warm-up match against a domestic county ahead of the Royal London Cup, with the group stage being played over a three-week period in August and the competition visiting at least nine courses. . . The knockout stages take place during the last week of the month, with a gap of 18 days before the tournament returns to the final on Saturday.

Durham, Gloucestershire, Leicestershire, Middlesex, Nottinghamshire, Somerset, Surrey, Sussex and Warwickshire will be in Group A, while Group B will consist of Derbyshire, Essex, Glamorgan, Hampshire, Kent, Lancashire, Northamptonshire, Worcestershire and Yorkshire.

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