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In men's cricket, there are eighteen professional county clubs,[1] seventeen of them in England and one in Wales. All eighteen counties are named after, and were originally representative of, historic counties. These clubs are heavily dependent on subsidies from the England and Wales Cricket Board, which makes its money from television and endorsement contracts and attendances at international matches. The English cricket season traditionally starts at the beginning of April and runs through to the second half of September although in recent years counties have played pre season friendly matches at the very end of March.[2]
The National Counties Cricket Championship is a season-long competition in England for county clubs that do not have first-class status. There are nineteen teams representing historic English counties along with a Welsh minor counties team.
In women's cricket, 36 teams, mainly representing counties, currently compete in the Women's Twenty20 Cup. The Women's County Championship, a one-day competition, was also competed for by counties until it ended in 2019.[3] In 2016 the Women's Cricket Super League was established, a Twenty20 competition with six franchise teams. The Women's Cricket Super League was replaced in 2020 with a new regional domestic structure for women's cricket.[4] This included eight teams each representing a region of England and Wales, and competing in the 50-over Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy from 2020 and the Twenty20 Charlotte Edwards Cup from 2021.[5]
The full name of the cricket team is usually formed from the name of the county followed by the words County Cricket Club, which are often abbreviated as CCC.
Derbies
The following games are considered derbies:-
Roses Match – Yorkshire v Lancashire
Battle of London (Cross-Thames Derby) – Middlesex v Surrey
Battle of the Bridge - Essex v Kent
South Coast Special (El Clasicoast) – Hampshire v Sussex
West Midlands Derby – Warwickshire v Worcestershire
West Country Derby – Somerset v Gloucestershire
East Midlands Derby – Notts v Derbyshire
North Derby – Yorkshire v Durham
MCC
The opening first-class game of an English county cricket season has traditionally been played at Lord's between the MCC and the Champion County (the club that won the County Championship the previous year). When the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) plays against one of the first-class counties, the game is granted first-class status. [citation needed]
University matches
Oxford and Cambridge universities played their first match against each other in 1827. After the advent of first class cricket, matches between Oxford and Cambridge, and between either of those two universities and another first class side, were considered first class matches, with the status applied retroactively to earlier matches. First class counties started playing matches at other universities in the 1980s, the first being Nottinghamshire vs Durham University at The Racecourse in 1981, but these were not granted first class status.[6]
The first University Centre of Cricketing Excellence (UCCE) was established at Durham University by Graeme Fowler in 1996.[7][8] The success of the Durham centre led to it being adopted as a national model by the ECB in October 2000, with the establishment of six UCCE sides (two – Durham and Loughborough – based around a single university; the others bringing together players from multiple institutions) playing from 2001 in a two-day match competition with a final at Lord's. From 2001 the Oxford and Cambridge matches against the counties were no longer considered first class games, but each UCCE played three early-season matches against county sides, which acted as pre-season warm-ups for the counties,[9][10] and for Oxford, Cambridge and Durham UCCEs these were considered first class. Matches between counties and Loughborough UCCE were considered first class from 2003.[11]
The MCC took over funding of the scheme from 2005, and from 2010 the UCCEs were rebranded as MCC University (MCCU) teams.[12] A further re-arrangement in 2012 granted first-class status to all six MCCUs, but only for two of the three matches against county sides each season.[13]
The MCC ceased funding the programme in 2020, with the organisation transferring back to the ECB.[12] The matches between the MCCUs and counties, and the annual University Match between Oxford and Cambridge, were no longer considered first class matches after 2020.[14] No MCCU matches were played in 2020 due to COVID,[15] although the last first class Oxford-Cambridge match was played that September.
As of 2022, pre-season matches with first class counties are played under the name of "English University Matches" (according to the ECB website, although Wisden uses the term ECB University Matches), and Exeter has been added to the universities participating.[16][17] Both the ECB and Wisden list the university teams participating in these pre-season matches as MCCUs, but they compete in British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) limited-over matches as UCCEs.[18] Inter-university matches outside of BUCS and the Oxford-Cambridge match have not, as of 2022, resumed after COVID. The 2023 and 2024 County v UCCE Matches continued to include Exeter, but Cambridge UCCE did not participate and have not played any matches as Cambridge UCCE (either against counties or in BUCS competitions) since 2022.[19][20][21] From the 2022 season, the Oxford UCCE men's team was replaced in BUCS by the single-institution Oxford Brookes UCCE.[22]
The university teams that have played first-class cricket, the dates when they held that status, the universities they represented and the number of first class matches played are:[23]
The Oxford and Cambridge Universities team played 18 first class matches against touring sides from 1839 to 1992, including two before official first class status started in 1895. The Combined Universities (British Universities from 1995) team, formed originally from Oxford and Cambridge but including other universities from 1987, played in the limited overs Benson & Hedges Cup from 1975 to 1998 and played 13 first class matches against touring sides from 1993 to 2006.[24][25] The MCC Universities team (formed from the six MCCUs) played various matches from 2007 to 2017, including entering the Second XI Championship from 2009 to 2017.[26]
Women's Domestic Regional Hubs
The eight women's teams represent "regional hubs" and are partnered with the counties in their region. Each team has at least six professionally contracted players.[27][28]
Originally scheduled to start in the 2020 season but postponed until 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Hundred is a 100 ball cricket competition which consists of eight city-based franchise teams, each of which field both a men's and women's team, in a league format.[29]
The cricket grounds of England and Wales are smaller than the largest in some other countries, especially India and Australia, but the best of them have been modernised to a high standard, and two new international grounds have been built in recent years. The largest English cricket ground, Lord's in London, is internationally regarded as the "home of cricket".[30]
In men's cricket, England is a founding Test cricket, One Day International and Twenty20 nation. England played in the first ever Test match in 1877 (against Australia in Melbourne) and the first ever One Day International in 1971 (also against Australia in Melbourne).
Each summer foreign national teams visit England to play Tests, One Day Internationals and Twenty20 Internationals. In the British winter the England team tours abroad. The highest profile rival of the England cricket team is the Australian team, with which it competes for The Ashes, one of the most famous trophies in British sport.[39][40]
England enjoys a hotly contested and storied rivalry with Australia, against whom they compete for The Ashes in a contest that dates back to the nineteenth century.
Popularity
In 2005 the ECB concluded a commercial arrangement with BSkyB which gave Sky the exclusive television rights for live Test cricket in England for four years (the 2006 to 2009 seasons). This deal, which took live Test cricket for home England matches away from terrestrial television for the first time generated substantial future revenues for English cricket, but was criticised by many England cricket supporters and others.[43][44][45][46]
Cricket is also one of the most popular participation sports in England after football, rugby and tennis with most villages running a side every Sunday through the season, and towns putting out 2, 3, 4 and occasionally 5 sides for Saturday league matches, and 1 or 2 sides on a Sunday. According to the mid year 2020-21 Active Sport England survey an estimated 181,500 people play cricket at least twice a month, a 0.4% fall compared to the previous year.[47] Around 65% population of England follow Cricket.[48][49][50][51][52]
Bibliography
Malcolm, Dominic (2013). Globalizing Cricket Codification, Colonization and Contemporary Identities. Bloomsbury USA Academic. ISBN978-1849665278.
Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) is a cricket club founded in 1787 and based since 1814 at Lord's Cricket Ground, which it owns, in St John's Wood, London. The club, formerly the governing body of cricket, retains considerable global influence.
Durham County Cricket Club is one of eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Durham. Founded in 1882, Durham held minor status for over a century and was a prominent member of the Minor Counties Championship, winning the competition seven times. In 1992, the club joined the County Championship and the team was elevated to senior status as an official first-class team. Durham has been classified as an occasional List A team from 1964, then as a full List A team from 1992; and as a senior Twenty20 team since the format's introduction in 2003.
Oxford University Cricket Club (OUCC), which represents the University of Oxford, had held first-class status since 1827 when it made its debut in the inaugural University Match between OUCC and Cambridge University Cricket Club (CUCC). Following the 2021 University Match, OUCC lost its first-class status. It was classified as a List A team in 1973 only. Home fixtures are played at the University Parks slightly northeast of Oxford city centre.
Cambridge University Cricket Club, established in 1820, is the representative cricket club for students of the University of Cambridge. Depending on the circumstances of each individual match, the club was recognised as holding first-class status until 2020. The university played List A cricket in 1972 and 1974 only. It has not played top-level Twenty20 cricket.
Inter-county cricket matches have been played since the early 18th century, involving teams that are representative of the historic counties of England and Wales. Since the late 19th century, there have been two county championship competitions played at different levels: the County Championship, a first-class competition which involves eighteen first-class county clubs among which seventeen are English and one is from Wales; and the National Counties Championship, which involves nineteen English county clubs and one club that represents several Welsh counties.
Durham University Centre of Cricketing Excellence, known as Durham MCC University from 2010 to 2020, is a cricket coaching centre based at Durham University in Durham, County Durham, England, and the name under which the Durham University Cricket Club (DUCC) first team plays.
Joshua Philip Thomas "Josh" Knappett is an English cricket coach and former English first-class cricketer.
The University Match in a cricketing context is generally understood to refer to the annual fixture between Oxford University Cricket Club and Cambridge University Cricket Club.
Richard Allan Kettleborough is an English international cricket umpire, and former first-class cricketer who appeared in 33 first-class matches for Yorkshire and Middlesex. He was a left-handed top order batsman and occasional right-arm medium pace bowler. He attended Worksop College and was a member of the college cricket XI for a number of years.
Duncan Phillip Bradshaw is an English cricketer. Bradshaw is a right-handed batsman who bowls right-arm fast-medium. He was born in the Zimbabwean capital of Harare into a White Zimbabwean family of British descent and educated at Hilton College in South Africa, before moving with his family to England.
Ruel Marlon Ricardo Brathwaite is a Barbadian former cricketer. Brathwaite played county cricket for Durham and Hampshire, in addition to playing first-class cricket at varsity level.
Paul Merwood Best is a former English cricketer. Best is a left-handed batsman who bowls slow left-arm orthodox who played for Warwickshire County Cricket Club. He was born at Nuneaton, Warwickshire and educated at Bablake School, Coventry.
The 2017 English cricket season was the 118th in which the County Championship had been an official competition. The season, which began on 28 March and ended on 29 September, featured two global one-day competitions played in England and Wales, the 2017 ICC Champions Trophy and the 2017 Women's Cricket World Cup. England Women's team won the World Cup, defeating India in the final at Lord's. Pakistan beat India in the Champions Trophy final.
The 2019 Marylebone Cricket Club University Matches were a series of cricket matches that were played between the eighteen County Championship teams and the six Marylebone Cricket Club University teams (MCCU) of England and Wales. The first two rounds of fixtures were classed as first-class matches. Each county side played one fixture against an MCCU side ahead of the start of the 2019 County Championship.
The 2019 English cricket season ran between 26 March and 26 September. It was the 120th in which the County Championship has been an official competition and featured first-class, one-day and Twenty20 cricket competitions throughout England and Wales.
The 2020 English cricket season was originally scheduled to run between 2 April and 25 September. It was planned to have first-class, one-day and Twenty20 cricket competitions throughout England and Wales and as well as the launch of a new franchised 100 ball competition, The Hundred; it would have been the 131st year in which the County Championship has been an official competition.
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