Counties vote to reject Championship reform

After a vote, proposed changes to the County Championship will remain a two-division structure with only 14 matches per team.

Eighteen first-class counties were given the option of choosing between the current system, which featured a 12-team top flight, six bottom tier teams, and 13-game games between each team.

One day before the final round of this year’s County Championship games begin, the ballot returned a result on Tuesday.

To pass the reform, a majority of the 12 counties needed to vote for it, a requirement that was not met.

The County Championship’s current structure, which has 10 teams in Division One and eight in Division Two, is preserved thanks to the results of the vote, with two teams promoted and relegated between each.

It puts an extensive examination of the counties’ domestic schedule to an end.

In August, a change to the Twenty20 Blast was approved, reducing the number of group games from 14 to 12 and introducing the season’s finals day.

However, the counties’ differing viewpoints on how the Championship should proceed have kept the current configuration.

There were several suggestions made, including reducing the number of first-class matches to 12, as recommended by the Professional Cricketers’ Association (PCA).

The 12-team top flight with a 13-match structure was suggested when it became clear the shift from 14 to 12 was dead in the water.

To make up the 13 games, a county would need to play two more teams twice and three more times in order to top the six teams.

The changes, according to supporters, will give more teams more opportunities to play over the summer and eliminate dead games at the end of the season. The PCA would have benefited from the reduced number of matches in some way.

However, a number of counties made it known that they wanted to stay in the two-division structure. The proposed system’s opponents felt it was too difficult to follow and lacked enough “best v best” appeal.

The counties’ counties are clear about a number of issues that are still unresolved as the championship matches near their final round of matches come to an end after the domestic consultation’s conclusion.

The relegation battle would have effectively been ended if there had been a reform vote, but Sussex, Essex, Yorkshire, Hampshire, and Durham are now forced to compete to avoid joining Worcestershire in Division Two. Both Glamorgan and Leicestershire have already secured promotion.