Questionnaire

[dazedpenguin]

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/aug/11/t20-blast-lose-two-matches-per-team-in-2026-domestic-cricket-reshuffle

No agreement on the Championship yet.

"?The men?s T20 Vitality Blast will be reduced from 14 to 12 group-stage games from 2026 to streamline the competition and ease the workload on players in the latest reshuffle of English domestic cricket.

The reduction in the number of games will allow the competition to be played in a block, with Finals Day held before the Hundred starts in August, rather than going into hibernation during the summer holidays before stumbling back to life in September.?

...
There is not yet any agreement on the future of the County Championship, but the mood music suggests against any drastic change, despite the PCA?s plea that a reduction from 14 to 12 games is ?the only reasonable option?. A decision will be made by the counties before the Championship resumes for three final rounds in September."

[SirChef26]

Clearly struggling to get the votes needed to reduce it. We all know that's what they want to do.

[bwildered]

Championship now officially relegated to April, May, June and September .

[essexfan548]

New group structure as hinted in the webinar here:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/articles/cy7y5y2z46ro

"Men's Vitality T20 Blast

The group stage of the Vitality T20 Blast reverts to three groups with North, Central and South Groups with the eight best-placed teams on points and net run-rates going through to the quarter-finals.

North Group: Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Lancashire, Durham, Yorkshire and Leicestershire

Central Group: Gloucestershire, Northamptonshire, Birmingham, Somerset, Glamorgan, Worcestershire

South Group: Surrey, Sussex, Kent, Middlesex, Essex, Hampshire

Each county plays the other teams in their group home and away - a total of 10 matches.

They will additionally play one home game against a county from outside their group and one away game against a side from another group.

The top two teams in each group plus the best two third-placed teams progress to the quarter-finals. The winners of the quarter-finals will progress to men's T20 Blast Finals Day."

[Slogger]

That T20 format is very dull and unimaginative. Mind you, so is the status quo. Once the 100 morphs into a T20 league I suspect the blast will become the equivalent of the 50 over competition.

[bwildered]

Apparently there is a board meeting Sunday, where the SGM is on the agenda .

[bwildered]

 We invite you to a follow-up online webinar on Thursday 28 August (6:30pm), which will be the next opportunity to share the latest updates from the ECB alongside the Club?s stance on the proposed structure plans, as part of our ongoing efforts to gather feedback from all stakeholders, including Members.

[nat]

We invite you to a follow-up online webinar on Thursday 28 August (6:30pm), which will be the next opportunity to share the latest updates from the ECB alongside the Club?s stance on the proposed structure plans, as part of our ongoing efforts to gather feedback from all stakeholders, including Members.

Waffle. Just commit to implementing members? wishes.

[essexfan548]

We invite you to a follow-up online webinar on Thursday 28 August (6:30pm), which will be the next opportunity to share the latest updates from the ECB alongside the Club?s stance on the proposed structure plans, as part of our ongoing efforts to gather feedback from all stakeholders, including Members.

Waffle. Just commit to implementing members? wishes.

I agree - I've been a member for over 50 years - none of the committee/board or players have been involved for so long. Essex is a members club ... .

[Andy]

We invite you to a follow-up online webinar on Thursday 28 August (6:30pm), which will be the next opportunity to share the latest updates from the ECB alongside the Club?s stance on the proposed structure plans, as part of our ongoing efforts to gather feedback from all stakeholders, including Members.

Waffle. Just commit to implementing members? wishes.

Stalling tactics

[nat]

The word on the street is that the ECB have proposed a 13 game county championship. They are trying to 'peel away' some of the flakey counties into supporting this reduction from 14 games. Essex are one of the (snow) flakes.

There are SGMs taking place at Lanky and Notts to force their boards into voting in line with their members' views i.e. retain the status quo.

I urge all Essex members to keep up the pressure on Essex to vote for the status quo.

[bwildered]

 Does the club know the majority views of the members, and how ?
Much to the annoyance of the Chairman, 250 members signatures had been collected for the retention of the status quo but that is only a small proportion of the overall .

So after tonight?s forum all members need to know the proposals and  exactly how to register their views  and votes .

Whatever the final outcome changes should only be made after NEXT season, has totally unfair on clubs, players and supporters to change the goalposts at the end of this season.

[vim]

When the petition was going round. Only a handful of useful idiots, refused to sign it.

[bwildered]

When the petition was going round. Only a handful of useful idiots, refused to sign it.

 Many non members have access to what use to be non members area eg Tom Pearce stand, so they might have not been members whatsoever.

[vim]

We were asked to provide a membership number. In order that the non-members could be filtered out.

As 5% of the voting membership, is the trigger. It says a lot about the total number of members today. That, reaching this figure, was not difficult.