DURHAM
Previewed by Graham Hardcastle - ECB Reporters Network supported by Rothesay
Captain: Hollie Armitage
Head Coach: Dani Hazell
The big questions: Durham have assembled a squad including some star signings and some smart signings. Will they be able to hit the ground running at the start of a new era for women’s cricket in the county? Spin bowling looks to be their super-strength
Evie Ashton has won the coveted Christopher Martin-Jenkins Young Journalist of the Year following the presentation of the 2024 Domestic Cricket Journalism Awards at Lord’s.
The new-look awards, now in their 14th year, were presented in conjunction with the Cricket Writers’ Club at the ECB Domestic Season Launch.
The awards featured three new categories – Podcast of the Year, Photo of the Yea
Shakib Al Hasan’s suspension from bowling in ECB competitive county cricket and The Hundred has been lifted.
The Bangladesh all-rounder passed an independent re-assessment on his bowling action at Loughborough University earlier this month.
The re-assessment found that Shakib had remedied his action to within the prescribed 15-degree threshold as defined in the ECB Bowling Review Regulations
The England & Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has awarded Hampshire fast bowler Sonny Baker a Men’s Development Contract, which will run until September 2025.
Baker, 21, will join Hampshire for the start of the 2025 season after previously playing for Somerset. The pace bowler has excelled over the winter, culminating in a successful England Lions tour of Australia last month, which caught the at
Parties chosen after comprehensive three-round bidding process which attracted interest from around the world Subject to successful conclusion of deals, they will partner with host clubs to run each Hundred team and help realise global ambitions for the competition The eight teams have been valued at a total of just over £975m, with more than £520m set to be injected into the professional and rec
Surrey will begin their bid for a fourth successive Men's Rothesay County Championship title at local rivals Essex following release of the full 2025 county schedule.
The fixtures for the County Championship, which will be title sponsored by Rothesay for the next three years, and Metro Bank One-Day Cup women’s and men’s competitions have today been confirmed alongside dates for the Disability P
All 18 first-class counties will host at least one women’s and men’s Vitality Blast double header next season after the schedule for a historic 2025 domestic T20 summer was revealed today.
The 2025 season will be the first time all women’s and men’s county teams will play side by side in the Vitality Blast, the original domestic T20 cricket comptition that delivers fast-paced and explosive acti
The draw for the inaugural Vitality T20 Women’s County Cup has been unveiled.
Thirty-seven teams from across the three tiers of the women’s domestic structure will enter the knock-out competition, with the Tier 1 teams entering at Round Three.
The knock-out nature of the Vitality T20 Women’s County Cup will give Counties in Tier 2 and Tier 3 the chance to pull off a giant-killing against ful
County cricket's best and brightest have been celebrated for their outstanding achievements in the 2024 Business of Cricket Awards (BOCAs).
The awards took place at Edgbaston Cricket Ground on Thursday, 14 November, recognising excellence across the First-Class Counties and MCC and the key contributors behind the scenes.
Hampshire County Cricket Club took home three titles this year, winning
Minimum starting salaries will be equalised across men’s and women’s professional domestic cricket from 2025.
The move will apply both at ‘Rookie’ level, which is being introduced into the women’s game for the first time and which will typically be a player’s first professional contract, and at ‘Senior Pro’ level for players who have established themselves in first teams.
It has also bee
Men’s and women’s professional domestic T20 and 50-over competitions will be fully aligned for the first time next season in further steps to fuel the growth and reach of women’s professional cricket.
The move will see men’s and women’s teams competing side by side in the Vitality Blast and the Metro Bank One Day Cup from the 2025 season.
The eight women’s Tier One professional county teams
GROUP A
DERBYSHIRE
Preview by Nigel Gardner - ECB Reporters Network
Captain: Ross Whiteley
Overseas player: Daryn Dupavillon (South Africa)
2023 finish: Eighth (Group B)
2023 leading run scorer: Luis Reece (392)
2023 leading wicket taker: Sam Conners (12)
Key player: Reece had an impressive tournament in 2023 when he also took 11 wickets with his left-arm swing. The
The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) have confirmed the formation of Tier 2 and Tier 3 in the revamped women’s domestic cricket structure, to be launched in full in 2025.
Derbyshire, Glamorgan, Gloucestershire, Kent, Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Middlesex, Sussex, Worcestershire and Yorkshire will make up Tier 2 in the 2025 season.
The ten Counties will play 50-over and 20-over
A 13-man squad has been selected for the First-Class County Select XI’s three-day match against West Indies at Beckenham starting on Wednesday 3 July.
The squad features upcoming players from across 11 first-class counties and provides an opportunity to test themselves against international opposition.
ECB Men’s Performance Director, Ed Barney, said: “We’re delighted to have selected a
The Vitality Wildcard Draft took place today with 32 players being drafted into The Hundred off the back of their stand-out form in the Charlotte Edwards Cup and the Vitality Blast.
It leaves all eight teams in The Hundred, across both the women’s and men’s competitions, with full squads with just under 50 days to go until the first game gets underway at The Kia Oval.
England Men’s Test
The ECB Board today confirmed that Yorkshire will become a women’s Tier 1 Club for the 2026 season, subject to meeting a series of conditions.
Yorkshire had been announced as a Tier 1 expansion Club in April of this year, to join by 2027. The decision to confirm 2026 as the preferred season in which Yorkshire will participate in Tier 1 has been taken to provide greater certainty about the i
As the game gathers in Cardiff today for the England and Wales Cricket Board’s (ECB) Annual General Meeting, new data shows that the number of people playing, attending or following cricket surged by 2m last year as nailbiting Men’s and Women’s Ashes series captured the nation’s imagination.
Bumper ticket sales and viewing for both series saw the total jump to 14.7m – up from 12.5m the previous
The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has confirmed the eight First Class Counties who have been successful in their bid to be awarded Tier 1 women’s team status from 2025.
As a further outcome of the Tier 1 invitation to tender process, the ECB has also today announced the selection of two additional First Class Counties to expand Tier 1 from eight to ten teams by 2027, and an intent t
Surrey have been emphatically backed to win a hat-trick of Vitality County Championship titles by the 18 first-class county captains.
Ahead of the domestic summer starting tomorrow the ECB has released the results of the annual captains' survey.
The leaders of all men’s county teams were asked to provide their predictions for the red-ball season with 12 of the 18 captains anticipating th
Melissa Story and Katya Witney have won the two individual honours at the 2023 ECB Domestic Cricket Journalism Awards, which were presented in partnership with the Cricket Writers’ Club at The Kia Oval today.
Story won the coveted Christopher Martin-Jenkins Broadcaster of the Year with a CWC judging panel labelling the BBC Test Match Special commentator as a “terrific young broadcaster with