Breaking news.
I understand that following on from the votes from all of the first class counties re the possible restructuring of the County Championship having to be cast today by 17.00, that insufficient support was gained for any change to the current divisional structure and the commensurate reduction in the amount of County Championship matches from 14.
So it is as you were for next season and unless another move to restructure is made in the intervening years, right up until 2031.

Have that!!

Congratulations and thanks to those counties who stood firm and resisted all the pressures from the ECB and the PCA.

OHD so broken by it all he can't even bring himself to play today!

Good email from Stuart Cain. No gnashing of teeth like I imagine some county chiefs are displaying right now. The way e.g. Lancs have carried on this last fortnight begging their members to vote a certain way was unbecoming of them

I hope this distraction can be put to bed now until 2031.

Instead of cutting how about they try to be more creative over the next few seasons try a few different scenarios out that do not involve reducing county championship fixtures.

Ideas which wouldn't get so many people's backs up include;

1. Try playing a couple of rounds of CC cricket during the latter stages of the Hundred

2. Bring back 2 divisions of 9 so there are 16 matches but have the middle 8 of them 3-day fixtures played Tuesday to Thursday in June and July in-between the weekend Blast fixtures

This would actually reduce number of playing days by 2 so might go some way to appeasing Olly Hannon-Scargill and his PCA bods but also ensure there are more day 1s 2s and 3s for members and the public to potentially look forward to

June July longer lighter days I'd say it's worth a try and we can have some proper cricket in summer again

Yes, Stuart Cain says:
"One positive to come out of this is the desire of those on the Committee to further strengthen links with the Members they serve, and they’ve already discussed a number of initiatives for next season that will hopefully help achieve this.”

I took that as an admission that the members’ committee haven’t represented the members or even tried to.

I wrote to members committee and they told me the Club CEO would reply to me - which then didn’t even happen. They have to be accountable and polite themselves. They are supposed to represent members not the Club Board.

If this carries on they will be by passed and seen as Club lackeys. Cain knows we are into SGM territory if that carries on.

CC being played during the Hundred will happen at some point.

I assume Warwickshire were one of the counties who voted for the change, even without properly engaging with members?

I think it would be useful to know the counties who were in favour of maintaining the 14 round season. It's not perfect but the answer is certainly not to reduce it any further.

Interesting that it is out today, and not next week. My understanding was the vote was going to be pushed back until after the season had finished as it would affect the integrity of the current season with promotion and relegation - but maybe that is somewhat determined already if it is no change.

As with others posters, I'm glad CC isn't going to be reduced but it seems certain we will have this discussion again at some point. The 100 will not go away yet it's presence compresses the calendar and canibalises other competitions. Perhaps running a few rounds of CC in August would help here? I've mentioned before I like seeing the youth players have a go in the metro bank and I like using out grounds, so I think it still has integrity. Maybe the next focus is what this means for the metro and the blast? The latter has already lost some fixtures, there could be more to come...

Cricket in October then

Wonderful news and well done to the magnificent seven who thwarted this plan.

A proposal at the AGM to leave the members' committee as is, with the caveat that changes to the structure of the CC needs to be approved by the membership as a whole might help. Given the number of white ball only members there is now, including the Blast in the proposal could increase the chances of it getting approved.

Surely white ball only “members” don’t have a vote? Full membership of the Club for votes surely?

Vote was apparently a 9-9 split

PCA: "Structure not fit for purpose"
The PCA have issued a statement following the first-class counties decision to retain the 14-match Championship. The PCA’s player’s committee, chair Olly Hannon-Dalby and Chief Exec Daryl Mitchell, worked alongside the county chairs during the consultation period.

PCA Chair, Olly Hannon-Dalby, said:

“The players voice on the schedule has been steadfast for a number of years and provided a clear directive for the game to join together to improve standards for all.

Over the past two years, we have seen increasing levels of genuine concern for player health and wellbeing and as an Association we represented this in the strongest possible way. Ultimately the required minimum number of 12 county Chairs did not see player welfare as a priority.

“The players voice must be heard and while we recognise scheduling concerns go well beyond county cricket with a cluttered international calendar and similar issues in other sports, we cannot relent in our ambition to create minimum standards to allow for a safer schedule.”

PCA Chief Executive Officer, Daryl Mitchell, said:

“Throughout the process players have been agile and willing to compromise, initially supporting a 12-game season and then a 13-game option so it is incredibly disappointing the game could not come together to improve county cricket, despite the best intentions of the players.

“Unfortunately, the decision-makers have failed to ensure our premiere red-ball competition remains a standout in world cricket by evolving, not just to meet the needs of modern professionals, but to provide a product that captures the imagination for all.

“Players appreciate the small tweak to the Vitality Blast schedule, however, we are yet to see a fixture list. At the very least, we expect to see a significant reduction in back-to-back fixtures.

“With the continuation of a 14-game Championship season, an indicative schedule for 2026 we have seen suggests there will be two games in nine days following The Hundred, this cannot be acceptable. We now need to ensure the best possible schedule can be created in a structure that remains not fit for purpose.”

Flexibility is missing. There used to be Sunday league games scheduled the same weekend as the Nat West final surely they can do something similar alongside the Hundred final and alongside the one day cup final just start games over the same weekend and move the 2 or 4 fixtures impacted back a couple of days

Also why is nobody speaking up for those players who want more red ball cricket to play especially in August?

Derbyshire have it right;

https://derbyshireccc.com/2025/09/club-statement-domestic-structure-review/

The Board strongly believes that the fine balance between player welfare, the commercial impact of the domestic structure, as well as the needs of spectators, can be addressed by making adjustments to the schedule, as opposed to reducing the number of days of cricket.

It oughtn't be beyond the wit of man to produce a schedule better than that offered up the last 15 - 20 years we've moaned and moaned about it as spectators. Not enough weekend play was the common theme a few years back now it's not enough summer cricket full stop

Essentially the season needs to be unblocked

You can't have these blocks and also have 3 lots of finals (blast, odc, hundred) and 3 lots of semi finals/quarter finals eating up weekend's or with days going by with everybody else sitting idle. Warks had 2 weeks off recently and it was still fucking August FFS!!! That shit needs to stop. We need a schedule with counties still playing some form of limited overs league around the same time the finals are all on so that they can all be kept busy and there's something for everyone else to watch. This will then free up more time in the actual summer months of June July and August for some proper cricket to actually take place too

BosworthBear wrote:

Surely white ball only “members” don’t have a vote? Full membership of the Club for votes surely?

Not sure about 2025 but the membership brochure for next year says that B5 white ball membership gives full voting rights.

Players need to realise they are in the entertainment business, They should be playing when majority of people are not working. In otherwords at weekends and in school holidays and public holidays. I dread to think how many weekends over the season there was no cricket being played.

If they think they play too much cricket why did they agree to The Hundread being added to the fixture list and why do they willingly agree to play in franchise cricket around the world?

As I have mentioned before, I saw only 2 days Saturday cricket in 2014 and only because we got to both finals that year but the numpties at the ECB said that youngsters SHOULD be playing cricket at weekends and not watching it. The Hundread is probably from a players point of view, all about money and I am sure they get paid more for a game in that rotten version of cricket than they do for a 50-over game or a T20.

Andy wrote:

OHD so broken by it all he can't even bring himself to play today!

I don't want to pile in on OHD too strongly because I know he has to represent the views of his members. But his own season's workload has hardly been burdensome. He has played ten four day games plus six one dayers and one t20 (max 47 days). He has bowled 334 overs in the season. Taking a year from the past at random - say, 1951 when Warwickshire won the Championship - Derek Shackleton of Hampshire, a bowler of fairly similar pace to OH-D, played 31 three day matches (max 93 days) and bowled 1171 overs.
Quite a difference!

Somewhat one-eyed responses from the PCA: "You won't agree with us so you don't care about player welfare"; and I'm never convinced by those who argue that the way to save cricket is to stop playing it.
We're in transit to a world where franchise cricket is entirely separate from domestic competitions. They could then be played simultaneously with the franchise players having no County affiliations and the domestic players perhaps actually playing some cricket in June, July and August rather than sitting on their backsides and occasionally bowling a few overs in a white ball game. We just have to keep the County Championship going long enough for this split to become clear. Now that vulture capitalists are running The Hundred, I don't think it will be long.

If they got their way, likes of OHD would have even less cricket to play between June-August.

The reduction of 2 first class games would not have addressed the issue of too many games in April, May and September.