Nottinghamshire’s bid to retain the County Championship will start in Taunton, with a round-one visit to Somerset from 3 April launching a new season that has been divided into three clear windows.
The opening block runs for seven weeks, each of the six fixtures in that spell beginning on a Friday to give members and travelling supporters a tidy run-up. A shorter mid-June burst of two rounds follows, before the red-ball game picks up again on 20 August for the run-in. The last matches get under way on 24 September. Counties debated trimming the programme to 13 games during the summer but stuck with 14, so every team still faces seven home and seven away.
Leicestershire and Glamorgan, both promoted after long absences from the top flight, enjoy home comforts first up. Sussex head to Grace Road, while Yorkshire – back in Division One after last year’s reshuffle – travel to Cardiff.
Nottinghamshire’s triumph in 2025 ended a 15-year wait. It was clinched in suitably dramatic style when wicketkeeper Kyle Verreynne launched a late-season six to bank an extra batting point that nudged them above Somerset. No one at Trent Bridge is under any illusion that the follow-up will be easier. Stuart Broad, set for a lighter playing load, admitted recently that “getting one title is hard; keeping hold of it is usually harder.” The dressing-room mood, he added, is “quietly confident, never cocky”.
White-ball schedules have also dropped. Lancashire’s women, holders of both the 50-over title and the Vitality T20 Cup, open away to Durham on 11 April, then stage the first professional Roses match at Old Trafford on 25 April. Yorkshire, pushed up to Tier 1 a year ahead of time, start their own campaign at Somerset.
The men’s One-Day Cup begins on 24 July. Holders Worcestershire Rapids are at home to Derbyshire Falcons, with groups drawn at random. Group A features Gloucestershire, Kent Spitfires, Lancashire, Leicestershire Foxes, Northamptonshire Steelbacks, Notts Outlaws, Somerset, Surrey and Warwickshire. Group B contains Derbyshire, Durham, Essex, Glamorgan, Hampshire, Middlesex, Sussex Sharks, Worcestershire and Yorkshire. Finals weekend is 19-20 September, the women deciding their trophy at the Utilita Bowl on the Saturday, the men doing likewise at Trent Bridge a day later, with the Women’s League 2 final slotted in at Bristol.
The second edition of the Vitality T20 Women’s County Cup stretches to 37 teams. The early rounds start on 26 April, then, from 21 June, the nine top-tier counties – Durham, Essex, Hampshire, Lancashire Thunder, Somerset, Surrey, The Blaze, Warwickshire and Yorkshire – step in. Finals Day is pencilled in for 29 August at Old Trafford, where Lancashire are keen to defend their crown. Captain Eleanor Threlkeld called the prospect of a home final “a lovely carrot, but only if we earn it”.
The calendar is busy yet spaced, the aim being enough cricket without the sense of playing every other day. Members will make their own minds up, as they usually do, once the early-season chill gives way to warmer evenings and the long race for silverware – first-class or white-ball – gathers pace.
