News
The men’s Vitality Blast will shrink from 14 to 12 group matches from the 2026 season after the 18 first-class counties and the Professional Cricketers’ Association approved a broad reshuffle of domestic white-ball cricket. A similar paring-back is coming for the Women’s Regional T20 (commonly dubbed the Women’s Blast), which will drop from 14 to 12 games.
Under the new plan the men’s competition switches from two conferences of nine to three regional pools of six, mirroring the format hurriedly adopted during the pandemic-hit summer of 2020. Each side will play the other five teams in its pool home and away (10 matches) and pick up an extra home-and-away set against one cross-pool opponent, reaching 12 outings in total.
Qualification is straightforward: the top two counties in every pool plus the two best third-placed finishers advance to the quarter-finals, with Finals Day still booked for Edgbaston in mid-July, neatly before the Hundred rolls into town.
The white-ball tweaks come straight from the county-led Domestic Playing Programme review. That review also set out options for red-ball reform, yet agreement on the County Championship remains elusive. Three models are still being kicked around:
• A bold 12-team Division One split into two pools of six, with six others in Division Two. Sides would play 12 matches, and the two pool winners would meet for the title in mid-September.
• A more traditional two-division split of 10 and eight, again with 12 fixtures.
• Leaving things as they are: two tiers of 10 and eight and 14 matches apiece.
At least four clubs – Middlesex, Somerset, Surrey and Yorkshire – have publicly said they would rather keep the 14-game schedule. Officials want a call made before the end of August so teams know exactly what they are playing for in the final block of Championship fixtures.
Mark McCafferty, chair of the ECB’s Professional Game Committee, welcomed the decisions already signed off. “These changes to the men’s Vitality Blast will be a springboard to further investment in a historic and much-loved domestic T20 competition which is recognised as one of the world’s best,” he said.
County directors of cricket appear split. One coach in the south group argued a shorter Blast “should lift standards because the margin for error narrows,” though he admitted that losing a pair of lucrative Friday-night home games will sting the balance sheet. A counterpart in the north warned that ticket revenues still underpin many budgets: “Take away fixtures and you take away money. The ECB has to make sure the funding model compensates.”
Players are weighing the changes up, too. A senior seamer spoke of valuing the clearer windows. “If it’s a shorter, sharper tournament, preparation gets easier and you might see bowlers able to stay fit throughout,” he said on condition of anonymity.
On the women’s side, the shift to 12 fixtures is expected to follow the same three-pool arrangement, maintaining double-headers with men’s matches where possible. Regional directors privately accept the need to reduce travel and condense schedules but want assurances on prize money and broadcast exposure.
The calendar is already packed. The Hundred runs from late July into August, while the Royal London One-Day Cup clings to its late-summer slot, albeit increasingly viewed as a development platform. The ECB insists the latest changes allow enough space for each format and a meaningful rest period.
A few technical points remain in play. Bonus-point systems for the Championship may be tweaked to avoid dead games, and officials are modelling what a mid-season Championship final could look like for broadcasters. There is also talk of a home-grown player requirement being raised to match the Hundred’s rules.
For now, county chief executives are poring over spreadsheets. Reducing the Blast by two nights frees some room in the calendar but slices off potential income. The hope is that the shorter, regionally-minded tournament retains local rivalries, keeps travel sensible and heightens jeopardy.
Whether that hope is realised will become clear only once the new structure beds in. Until then, counties have a few weeks to thrash out how four-day cricket will look from 2026. Consensus, as ever in the domestic game, is proving harder to find than boundaries on a damp April morning.
