County cricket faces a radical overhaul under plans to enlarge the Championship’s top flight and shrink the T20 Blast, as opponents warn of a dilution of quality.
Despite a quintet of leading clubs including champions Surrey being in favour of the Championship’s top flight being cut from 10 teams to eight to ensure it lives up to its elite billing, there are plans under discussion to make Division One a 12-team competition.
It would be split into two groups of six and followed by end-of-season play-offs to decide the winner and relegation places.
In this scenario, Division One teams would play five home and away fixtures against teams from their own group. Their regular season would also include playing two matches against opposition from the other group in the case of a drop to a 12-game competition.
Alternatively, the round-robin stage could be followed by the top three playing the top three on the other side of the split. Either way, the top two teams in each group at the end would contest a final to decide the domestic first-class champions.
The bottom three would also go head to head, battling it out to avoid being in the bottom two, who would be relegated.
Surrey have won the last three County Championship titles and are in favour of reducing the size of the top flight to ensure it retains its ‘elite’ reputation
Gloucestershire are the reigning T20 champions, winning their first title last September at Edgbaston
Division Two would involve teams playing each other at least twice and in some cases three times. Two promotion places would be up for grabs – the Division Two winners, and the victors in a play-off between second and third.
The five clubs pushing for a return to an eight-team top flight have also campaigned for a straight 14-match season to remain in place, amid concerns that the play-offs could turn into a logistical nightmare.
Because the fixtures may only be decided after the final regular-season round, groundsmen would be unable to plan ahead. And teams may also be forced to cede home advantage if the make-or-break county matches clash with hosting England fixtures.
Since a Professional Game Group consultation process began in the spring, it has been widely accepted that both the Championship and Vitality Twenty20 Blast will be reduced to 12 matches apiece. However, directors of cricket have questioned whether the integrity of the 135-year-old competition would be compromised in a particularly wet summer.
It also felt significant this week that Middlesex and Somerset both publicly stated they do not want to see a further decrease – eight years after a change from 16 to 14.
Counties were never going to choose to revert back to the 8-10 divisional split for a 12-match season, because a two-thirds majority is needed to pass changes. That would require at least two Division One teams to vote for their own relegation, as well as reducing the number of days’ cricket available for members to watch.
Reaching common ground does not look straightforward. And what about proposals to rejig the Vitality Blast?
A cut from 14 to 12 group-stage games looks likeliest, with the 18 counties split into three regional areas rather than the current north-south divide. Each county would play the five teams in their region home and away, plus one match against a team from each of the other two regions.
Following the Hundred sell-off, which guaranteed each county a minimum £18million windfall, the majority of counties appear to agree that two Blast matches have to be sacrificed.
Middlesex are among the counties adamant that they do not want a reduction in matches
However, each prioritises different things and Somerset are one outlier, with chairman Sir Michael Barber saying: ‘We are a county that loves to play cricket and we don’t want to see a reduction in the number of fixtures, at least not before some creative attempts at reducing congestion are debated.’
Barber’s argument is that Somerset should not accept a change to the current status quo when they routinely achieve 8,500 sellouts at Taunton.
Counties that do not host the Hundred are receiving extra funds via an additional £10m levy for the foreign investment coming into the tournament.
But they are also wary that the gap between the haves and have-nots – emphasised by an independent report into the sport on Tuesday revealing that Surrey, Lancashire and Warwickshire, each of whom have a Test-match ground, generated 44 per cent of all county revenue in 2023 – will widen in future.
While the bigger clubs have diversified, with on-site hotels and conferencing facilities providing all-year-round income, the central belt of Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Northamptonshire rely on ECB funding for more than half of their annual income.
The overall reduction in cricket has been met by a demand for more by the smaller clubs. Put simply, they are asking to host more matches, so that they can satisfy their members’ desire to watch cricket, particularly in the now fallow month of August.
Pleas to increase matches in the 50-over Cup have fallen on deaf ears, but one plan being considered is scheduling the knockout stages of the white-ball competitions at neutral venues that do not usually host big-ticket events, financially rewarding the hosts and reducing stress on the squares at the Test centres.
The volume of cricket has been at the heart of the Professional Cricketers’ Association’s agenda for several years, of course, and its chairman Oliver Hannon-Dalby, the Warwickshire seamer, recently wrote to all 18 chief executives at the first-class counties demanding a reduction in playing hours from 2026.
No one other than Surrey and Warwickshire has won a County Championship since 2019, and they along with Lancashire are responsible for 44 per cent of all county revenue
PCA chairman Oliver Hannon-Dalby recently wrote to all 18 county chief executives to express players’ opposition to the current schedule
However, such a front-foot approach has been met with surprise around the shires given that fewer matches would naturally lead to clubs reassessing the number of players required to be competitive across the three domestic competitions. Smaller squad sizes and a drop in salary offers could be the end result.
As one source questioned: ‘Is reducing the overall numbers of players in employment and pushing wages down in some cases really serving the best interests of the PCA membership?
‘Fewer players, on more modest contracts? Sometimes you have to be careful what you wish for.’
It is hoped decisions will be reached this month. As this is cricket, October is more realistic.
