The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) recently announced a truly innovative new format for the 2026 Vitality Blast T20 competitions. This change guarantees an improvement for fans and players both. The changes aim to create a more balanced schedule, increase derby matchups, and improve fan engagement through a series of double-headers.
The Vitality Blast Women’s League 2 (Tier 2) will include teams such as Derbyshire Falcons, Glamorgan, Gloucestershire, Kent, Leicestershire Foxes, Middlesex, Northamptonshire Steelbacks, Sussex Sharks, and Worcestershire Rapids. The group stages for this, the lowest competitive tier, will kick off on 22 May and finish on 12 July.
The Women’s Competition (Tier 1) will showcase an absolute world-class field. So let’s hear you roar for the Warwickshire Bears, Durham, Essex, Hampshire Hawks, Lancashire Thunder, Somerset, Surrey, The Blaze and Yorkshire! This competition will be expanded to include two cohorts of nine teams, making the field even more competitive.
The Men’s Vitality T20 Blast will now consist of three groups of six teams split into North, Central and South groups. The North Group consists of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Lancashire, Durham, Yorkshire, and Leicestershire. The Central Group includes Gloucestershire, Northamptonshire, Warwickshire Bears, Somerset, Glamorgan and Worcestershire. Finally, the South Group includes Surrey, Sussex, Kent, Middlesex, Essex and Hampshire.
There are only 3 matches for the women, while the men’s group stages now boast 12 matches for each team. Save the date for the quarter-finals – happening on 15 July! Men’s Finals Day will be hosted by Edgbaston on 18 July.
We hope you’re as excited about this upcoming season as we are! It will include a record 61 double-headers, starting with the inaugural Roses match-up at the Old Trafford venue on Friday, July 10th. This much-anticipated event marks Yorkshire Women’s move to Tier 1 and emphasizes the ECB’s commitment to increasing derby rivalries and enhancing fan-friendly scheduling.
Neil Snowball from the ECB stated, “The changes to the men’s and women’s Vitality Blast competitions for 2026 have been made in order to benefit fans and players alike.”
The ECB noted that this new format would more heavily feature derby rivalries. It will include additional games on fan-friendly weekdays and weekends, and implement a more balanced schedule to help improve player performance.
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