We have completed the first half of the Rothesay County Championship and now have four weeks of T20 Blast cricket, starting on Thursday 29th May. The stop start nature of the season means there will be a turnaround in many counties’ overseas players, some of whom will not be around for the second half of the competition. England players will also come and go with the start of the Blast coinciding with the start of the white ball series against the West Indies.
The biggest change is with the women’s competition as, with the restructuring of the women’s game, this will be the first year that all women’s and men’s county teams will play side by side in the competition. All 18 first-class counties will host at least one women’s and men’s double header.
In the men’s competition, The South and North Groups have been retained, and each county will play 14 group matches. These will take place in two blocks, separated by two rounds of Championship matches, and then there will then be a six week break before the knock out rounds. The quarter finals will take place on the 3rd, 5th and 6th September, with Vitality Blast Men’s Finals Day on Saturday 13th September, at Edgbaston.
Don’t expect to be watching the same players turning out at Finals Day that started the competition!
The competiton has been dominated by teams from the South Group over recent years. The last North Group counties to reach Finals Day were Yorkshire and Lancashire in 2022, and the last winners were Nottinghamshire in 2020. Not surprisingly, Championship Division One sides have generally been too strong for the Division Two sides when it comes to the knock out stages, but Gloucestershire were the surprise commodity last year, beating the previous year’s winners Somerset in the final.
Many counties will have a significant change in personnel from their Championship side, and overseas T20 specialists will be in town. These are the players so far signed specifically for the Blast:
| Derbyshire | Allah Mohammad Ghazanfar | Afghanistan |
| Durham | Zak Foulkes Jimmy Neesham | New Zealand New Zealand |
| Essex | Mohammad Amir | Pakistan |
| Gloucestershire | D’Arcy Short | Australia |
| Hampshire | Dewald Brevis Lhuan-dre Pretorius | South Africa South Africa |
| Kent | Tom Rogers | Australia |
| Lancashire | Ashton Turner | Australia |
| Leicestershire | Shan Masood | Pakistan |
| Middlesex | Kane Williamson Josh Little | New Zealand Ireland |
| Northamptonshire | Matt Breetzke Lloyd Pope | South Africa Australia |
| Nottinghamshire | Daniel Sams Moises Henriques | Australia Australia |
| Somerset | Riley Meredith | Australia |
| Surrey | Mitchell Santner | New Zealand |
| Worcestershire | Ben Dwarshuis | Australia |
| Yorkshire | Will O’Rourke | New Zealand |
Clearly the difference in budgets means that the Blast has to play second fiddle to the Hundred when it comes to overseas stars, but it still attracts plenty of interest from county followers, and as last year demonstrated, it gives a chance for the second tier counties to put one over the big boys.
