COUNTY FIXTURES 2020: 12 County Championship rounds to feature weekend cricket, Royal London groups mixed up

The season begins on Easter Sunday – a week later than in 2019, with the final round of red-ball matches beginning on September 22

The opening 12 rounds of County Championship fixtures will all be played on at least one weekend day in 2020.

The season begins on Easter Sunday – a week later than in 2019, with the final round of red-ball matches beginning on September 22.

Next year’s calendar has taken on the added complexity of the inaugural edition of The Hundred, which will take place between July 17 and August 15.

However, the schedule in the main has managed to place each format of the game in a block of its own – much as anticipated; the first two months of the season are centred on red-ball cricket, with the T20 Blast then running through June and the first half of July, broken up only by three separate rounds of County Championship action.

The Blast will feature more matches on Thursdays, Fridays and weekends as counties look to make the most of the tournament's burgeoning popularity.

The Hundred then takes hold; the new competition will be played alongside the domestic 50-over tournament, which has been renamed the Royal London Cup as part of the insurance company’s new deal with the ECB – England's one-day series against Australia and Ireland will also be known as the Royal London Series as part of the arrangement.

Following the conclusion of The Hundred, the County Championship then returns for the final month of the campaign.

Gordon Hollins, the ECB’s managing director of county cricket, said: “The great opportunity that cricket has that any other sport would give their left arm for is the fact that we have different formats that appeal to different people, and it’s always a challenge trying to satisfy and give every type of cricket supporter what they want out of the schedule.

“Getting the optimal balance is always a challenge but it’s a nice problem to have. What we’ve tried to do here is to make sure that we’ve got the right balance to be able to help us grow the appeal of cricket through The Hundred and at the same time to make sure that traditional cricket supporters are serviced and have different formats that they can watch at different times.

“I think that we’ve done the best that we possibly can in that respect and having Championship cricket and being able to play different formats in blocks.

“From a performance point of view, it’s suboptimal to be bouncing from one format to another on a regular basis. You can’t help doing it at some points, but it’s not optimal from a performance point of view to keep changing formats. We’ve managed to achieve that.”

Alan Fordham, the ECB’s head of cricket operations, described having 12 out of 15 slots with weekend cricket as “a good win this year”.

Barring September, where scheduling Championship cricket at weekends is made harder by the presence of the Royal London final and T20 Blast Finals Day also taking place on Saturdays, there is red-ball action on a dozen Sundays between April and the end of August. In the past, when the early stages of the Championship season ran on a regular diet of Sunday to Wednesday fixtures, the Sundays were particularly successful among spectators.

As a precursor to the 50-over tournament, the final of which will be played at Trent Bridge rather than Lord’s from 2020 onwards, the national counties – formerly minor counties – will each host county sides in warm-up games.

^{Lancashire will be back in Division One of the County Championship next year}

The format for the Royal London Cup, won by Somerset in 2019, will remain the same once underway, with each club playing eight games in the group stage. The top side then passes straight into the semi-final, with the second and third-placed teams facing off, with the winners of those filling the other two semi-final berths.

However, the two groups will no longer be put together geographically. Instead, two batches of nine teams have been drawn at random, with 18 out-grounds being utilised at varying points of the round-robin phase as part of a subtle rebranding of the competition.

Essex, Worcestershire, Sussex, Middlesex, Kent, Durham, Gloucestershire, Hampshire and Lancashire make up Group A. Leicestershire, Derbyshire, Glamorgan, Yorkshire, Surrey, Warwickshire, Nottinghamshire, Northamptonshire and Somerset fill Group B.

Hollins added: “It’s obviously going to be different next year, but I think different could well mean better.

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“The three things that excite me about it are that it’s going to be popular with members, I believe, because you’re going to see the next wave of talent coming through that competition.

“One thing we felt really strongly about and that we got positive feedback on with our CPA (County Partnership Agreements) consultations was the appeal of playing at out-grounds more. The Hundred gives us that opportunity.

“The third thing is the national counties – formerly minor counties, whilst not playing in the competition, they are going to be reconnected with first-class counties by hosting a warmup game prior to the tournament starting.”

It has previously been suggested by Hollins himself that the Royal London Cup would become a developmental tournament in the absence of several star players due to involvement in The Hundred. However, it has also been confirmed that counties will be able to field an overseas player, despite initial speculation that this might not be the case.

^{Essex won their maiden T20 Blast crown in September}

Hollins explained his hope that the competition would allow for greater community connection, given the role of out-grounds. Their extensive presence is partially the result of the needs of The Hundred, though it is worth noting that 50-over matches will also take place at Hundred venues during the new tournament.

Warwickshire, by way of example, will host Nottinghamshire at Edgbaston in the Royal London Cup on July 31, before Birmingham Phoenix face Manchester Originals there in the men’s version of The Hundred on August 3.

“I think what we’ve done is try to make sure that that competition is used to be more appealing, to have different characteristics than perhaps some other competitions have, so that it connects with more people,” Hollins added.

“That’s the objective. I guess some people will see really good things in all that – the numbers of out-grounds, those that love seeing the next wave of players coming through, those that love the history of the national counties. Some people will see things that aren’t as positive as that.”

The first match of the men’s edition of The Hundred will be played between Oval Invincibles and Welsh Fire at the Kia Oval on July 17, with England facing Australia in a one-day international at Bristol on the previous day. Injury-permitting, however, it is anticipated that any players involved with Chris Silverwood’s side will also be available for the opening game of The Hundred.

Five days later, Birmingham Phoenix will host the first match of the women's equivalent against Manchester Originals at New Road.

Finals Day venues for the men’s and women’s competitions have not yet been set, though both will take the style of the Kia Super League, with the group-winners heading straight into the final and the two next-placed sides facing off in an eliminator.

England Test players will be available for their Hundred teams up until the evening of July 25, which will see the conclusion of the 12th game of the tournament. During that period, each side will have played three matches. England’s first Test against Pakistan then begins on July 30.

Weekend double-headers – with men’s and women’s games being played at the same ground one after another – will both be televised, with one beginning in early afternoon and the next afterwards. Games being broadcast live by the BBC, will be released in due course.

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