The Vitality Blast launches on Friday with a full round of nine matches changing the pace of the 2026 domestic season following six four-day fixtures for each county.
Here, Daily Mail Sport pinpoints the things to look out for in the revamped Twenty20 competition.
Revamped, you say? What’s changed?
Firstly, it has reverted to being played in an eight-week window, with finals day in Birmingham on July 18 rather than in September.
The scheduling provides the tournament with more of a flow, and avoids the issues caused by the disjointed relationship between the group and knockout stages last year.
Hosting both the quarter-finals and finals day in the final month of the season resulted in multiple overseas players being unavailable due to other commitments as well as England internationals missing out.
The ECB have revamped the format for this year’s competition, with the schedule providing more a flow and three regional groups offering up different match-ups
Condensing the group stage to 12 matches from 14 as part of an ECB review and re-packaging it from a north-south split to three regions of six has also thrown up different match-ups.
With teams facing opponents home and away, the other two fixtures take place against a team from each of the other groups – throwing up some rarely-seen meetings in this format, including Surrey hosting Lancashire at The Oval on opening night.
The top two teams in each group plus the best two third-placed teams progress to the quarter-finals on July 15 – three days before the Edgbaston extravaganza.
Can Somerset defend their crown?
History says not as it is a feat yet to be achieved across the tournament’s 23-year existence.
However, Lewis Gregory’s team have won twice in the past three years, sequences that Leicestershire and Friday’s opponents Hampshire managed previously.
Yes, they have lost two mainstays of their first-choice XI in Sean Dickson and Ben Green, to Glamorgan and Leicestershire respectively, but their strength in depth means that even though Riley Meredith, the leading wicket-taker in the 2025 Blast, misses the first six matches due to international duty with Australia, South Africa all-rounder Migael Pretorius steps up as he did for finals day last year.
And they have added to their firepower with the recruitment of another Australian: the six-hitting, wicket-taking Daniel Sams.
Somerset will be looking to become the first team to successfully defend their Blast title
Four clubs have never won it. What chance of that changing?
Well, the statistic certainly irks Yorkshire, who placed a huge onus of their winter recruitment on re-shaping their Blast squad.
They endured some ill luck with their first-choice overseas duo of Afghanistan bowler Naveen-ul-Haq and Will Sutherland, of Australia, ruled out through injury.
But they moved quickly to identify quality replacements, with Pakistan pair Hasan Ali and Faheem Ashraf – who most recently played in the competition for Warwickshire and Northamptonshire respectively – drafted in as replacements.
And as exclusively revealed by Daily Mail Sport earlier this year, they pulled off a coup with the signing of ex-England all-rounder Moeen Ali.
The one disappointment is that Moeen’s great friend Adil Rashid will not be alongside him.
Rashid, 38, has not played in the Blast for four years and Yorkshire insiders say they do not expect that to change this summer. Over recent years, the England leg-spinner has cited resting a long-term shoulder issue between international and Hundred commitments as his reason for not turning out for his home county.
Derbyshire, Durham and Glamorgan are the others seeking maiden titles.
Moeen Ali has been signed by Yorkshire as they bid to win the Blast for the first time
Familiar faces
Adam Rossington, a winner with Northamptonshire in 2016 and runner-up with Essex three years ago, is back for the first six matches of Middlesex’s campaign after being snapped up as a free agent.
You might also recognise Duan Jansen, the twin brother of South Africa’s Marco Jansen.
Like his sibling, he bowls left-arm pace from a high trajectory and gives the ball a clout with the bat, and is acting as something of a dual replacement for Gloucestershire – deputising for Aussie Liam Scott as overseas pick until mid-June and offering the same angle of attack as David Payne, who has been ruled out for the season with an ankle injury.
Mystery spin
Warwickshire believe they have captured a match winner in Pakistan’s headband warrior Usman Tariq, whose pause in delivery and raft of variations have flummoxed international batsmen – he has 18 wickets in nine appearances and an economy rate of 6.66.
In left-arm wrist spinner Sufiyan Moqim, Derbyshire looked to have trumped their midlands rivals, but Pakistan have since scuppered that deal by calling up a player that finished as top wicket-taker in the recent Pakistan Super League. They have drafted in pace bowler Akif Javed in his place while Afghanistani Allah Ghazanfar returns to add star dust to one of the tournament outsiders.
Surrey begin with just one import, Sean Abbott, after a move for Mohammad Nawaz fell through, but Mohammad Ali, second behind Moqim in terms of wickets at the PSL, adds pace to Nottinghamshire’s attack.
