Saturday’s T20 Blast Finals Day will go ahead without several headline players after a summer schedule many within the game describe as unworkable.
Now 23 seasons old, the Blast remains the world’s longest-running professional T20 competition – and, critics argue, the longest in days on the calendar. The 2025 edition began in late May and will finally finish at Edgbaston this weekend, some 15-plus weeks later. Lancashire meet Somerset in the first semi-final, Northamptonshire tackle Hampshire in the second, and the winners square off under the lights for the trophy.
A long pause after the group stage – filled by the Hundred – gives counties time to market quarter-finals, yet it empties Finals Day of star quality. Overseas recruits have returned home and England players are on international duty, while South Africa’s white-ball series has taken more away.
The England and Wales Cricket Board confirmed on Friday that next summer’s knockout matches will be brought forward. Finals Day is pencilled in for 18 July, immediately before the Hundred, and the format will shift to three groups of six rather than the current two groups of nine. Each side will play 12 league games instead of 14.
Lancashire are hardest hit. Jos Buttler, Saqib Mahmood, Phil Salt and Luke Wood are with England, while both overseas players are elsewhere – Chris Green is at the CPL with Barbados Royals and Ashton Turner is back in Western Australia for the domestic season.
“It’s not ideal,” captain Keaton Jennings told BBC Radio Lancashire. “I don’t want to point fingers [but] I do think the scheduling is absolutely ludicrous. You can’t have eight weeks between a last group-stage game and a final. There’s no other competition in the world that does that… It is frustrating. It feels like a massive kick in the teeth.”
Head coach Steven Croft has suggested a debut may be required. Mystery spinner Arav Shetty, who claimed nine wickets in this season’s One-Day Cup, is in the squad. Lancashire last lifted the Blast in 2015, Croft then the captain and a young Liam Livingstone in the XI.
Somerset, title-holders in 2023, are without Riley Meredith (Tasmania recall), Matt Henry (New Zealand duty) and Tom Banton (England). Their solitary overseas option is South African seamer Migael Pretorius, whose two previous T20 outings for the county hardly amount to match-hardened form.
Hampshire fare a little better; both Chris Lynn and Bjorn Fortuin remain available. Even so, Liam Dawson is with England, Dewald Brevis and Lhuan-dre Pretorius are in South Africa’s colours and Hilton Cartwright has also flown back to Western Australia. Adi Birrell’s men, already holders of the One-Day Cup, are chasing a record fourth Blast crown in the coach’s final summer.
Northamptonshire stunned Surrey at The Oval in the quarters and enter as bookmakers’ outsiders, yet the Steelbacks possess the rare luxury of an unchanged squad. Tim Robinson and Lloyd Pope – Adelaide-born but on a short-term deal – are both cleared to play.
Players, coaches and analysts agree the current September slot does county cricket no favours. Short-term contracts, international windows and rival leagues combine to thin playing resources precisely when the tournament seeks its grandstand finale.
Moving Finals Day to July is therefore welcome, though it will squeeze an already busy mid-summer. Still, the trade-off looks preferable: a shorter, sharper event with full-strength line-ups should improve the spectacle and, by extension, keep the competition relevant against the global backdrop of richer, franchise-run tournaments.
For now, supporters descending on a sold-out Edgbaston can still expect a carnival atmosphere, a double-header of knockout cricket and the inevitable stress of a 12-hour day. The quality may be patchier than usual, yet county cricket has a habit of finding drama in unlikely places – even when most of its leading lights are somewhere else.
