As debate and conversation continues around any potential changes to the domestic schedule, we wanted to provide some background information that outlines some of the considerations and complexities that go into planning the cricket calendar.
Major Match Fixtures
Our men’s and women’s international fixtures from 2025 through until the summer of 2031 are confirmed – and we’ll welcome England’s Men and Women on no fewer than 17 occasions in the next six years.
Fixtures will include:
- 2025: A Men’s Test match v Zimbabwe, a Men’s IT20 against South Africa and Women’s IT20 against India
- 2026: A Men’s Test match, and a Men’s IT20 against India
- 2027: A Men’s Ashes Test, a Men’s IT20 and a Women’s white-ball fixture
- 2028: A Men’s Test, a Men’s ODI against India and a Women’s white-ball fixture
- 2029: A Men’s ODI and Men’s IT20
- 2030: A Men’s Test
- 2031: A Men’s Ashes Test, a Men’s IT20 and a Women’s white-ball fixture
In addition, we will continue to host the Metro Bank One Day Cup Final, while the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup returns to England in 2030.
These fixtures form part of a cycle in which there is a contractual commitment for each English summer to feature six Men’s Tests, allowing our traditional Test venues to continue hosting the sport’s most prestigious format on a regular basis. We miss out on only one occasion, in 2029.
Men’s Test cricket remains of paramount importance to us – it is central to our financial sustainability, and it is at the heart of our identity as a club.
Having hosted the first five-day Women’s Test match in this country in 2023, the increased frequency of women’s internationals at Trent Bridge fits with our strategic ambition of hosting the highest level of men’s and women’s cricket, across all formats.
In addition, The Hundred’s position in the schedule is confirmed until at least 2029, with Trent Bridge to host four double-headers across a four-week period in late July or August each year.
Domestic Competitions
The professional domestic schedule is now considerably more varied than it was even two years ago.
To ensure we remain a thriving club which welcomes all cricket lovers, we must offer as wide a range of cricketing experiences to members and supporters as possible. We also want to ensure that women and girls in our county enjoy the opportunity to forge a professional career, just as men and boys have for many decades.
The Blaze now call Trent Bridge home alongside Nottinghamshire’s men – and an extra professional team has, of course, led to an expanded fixture list. This summer, Nottinghamshire’s men are scheduled to play:
- Fourteen County Championship fixtures
- Eight Metro Bank One Day Cup games
- Fourteen Vitality Blast fixtures
The Blaze, meanwhile, are scheduled to play:
- Fourteen Metro Bank One Day Cup games
- Fourteen Vitality Blast fixtures
In total, that amounts to the highest number of scheduled home domestic matchdays since 1992, without taking into account the potential for knockout fixtures for either of our teams.
Pathways and Performance
Each of our professional men’s and women’s teams is underpinned by a comprehensive player pathway.
Nottinghamshire and The Blaze each have an Academy setup to allow the most promising young players to hone their skills – with an Emerging Player Programme sitting directly beneath this.
In addition, we host boys’ County Age Group sides at U10, U11, U12, U13, U14, U15, U16 and U18 levels, alongside girls’ County Age Group teams at U11, U13, U15 and U18 levels. This year we have almost 200 local young players involved in these programmes, all with prescribed contact training time.
The training requirements of all these teams are weekly from November to August and include outdoor and indoor sessions. In addition, we play 194 matches across the season.
We are committed to providing each of these teams – 12 in total – with year-round access to our facilities at Trent Bridge and Lady Bay, to help us deliver on our strategic priority of producing and developing local players with the ability to play first-team cricket, and progressing to compete for international honours at all levels.
Facilities
Like many First-Class County headquarters, Trent Bridge is now hosting more cricket, across more formats, than ever before. The continued importance of maintaining longstanding men’s domestic and international competitions, whilst committing to the growth of the women’s game, have all put significant pressure on our facilities.
Quality grass nets and pitches are an essential part of our sport. We have invested in our training base at Lady Bay, which now has 62 grass nets and hosts the vast majority of our men’s Second XI and Academy matches, but it is now operating at capacity.
There is unrelenting demand on the pitches and outfield at Trent Bridge too both on match days and for training and practise days. As such, we schedule some Nottinghamshire and The Blaze matches at outgrounds and beyond our county borders.
The support of our fellow East Midlands counties to help us to stage T20 and 50-over fixtures for The Blaze has been invaluable. Meanwhile, the John Fretwell Centre in Welbeck has become a home to our men’s and women’s 50-over side in recent years, but we are not fortunate enough to enjoy access to a second facility which is fully equipped to cope with the demands of First-Class or T20 matchdays.
Facilities for players, support staff and spectators must meet the exacting standard required for hosting a professional fixture. Alternative host venues must also meet certain standards to be able to host fixtures – an impact which is felt by our support staff and workforce, many of whom have responsibilities for all ‘home’ cricket, regardless of the venue at which it is played.
Scheduling of formats
Discussions over the shape of the domestic structure occur regularly. 2010 was the first year in recent times in which we had three men’s domestic competitions – down from four in previous years – and the structure changed again in 2012, 2014, 2017 and 2020. This current review is the first to take place with a playing schedule that contains a professional women’s structure, which has to be factored into the discussion.
Over the years, changes have occurred as a result of trying to find balance in elite performance, member and supporter requirements and a commercial return, which do not always align.
One of the more significant changes in recent years came ahead of the 2017 season, when competitions began to be staged in ‘blocks’ to aid performance and minimise the number of times players were required to switch between formats.
However, from a spectator viewpoint, holding competitions in blocks does inevitably mean that, if you follow only one competition, your preferred format takes a break during parts of the summer.
Commercial considerations are also at play when it comes to the scheduling of fixtures within these blocks: the general trend is for T20 to be scheduled in the middle of the season and at weekends, a factor which has helped to shape the amount of Blast cricket being played Thursday to Sunday in this summer’s schedule.
The Hundred has successfully introduced a new generation of supporters to English cricket and the recent sale of the eight teams will bring investment to underpin the existing county structure.
Its position in the calendar is assured throughout this next cycle of domestic and international cricket and so the debate is what format of county cricket best sits alongside it.
The logic in originally placing the One Day Cup alongside The Hundred was twofold. Holding the competition’s entire group-stage in one block, helps to avoid a situation in which changes in player availability adversely affect the competitive balance between sides – something which could compromise the integrity of the County Championship.
Those players selected to play in The Hundred are unavailable to their county and the impact on individual teams differs markedly. At extreme ends of the scale, the number of players selected from counties ranged from one to fifteen. In the 2024 competition, six Nottinghamshire players were drafted to Hundred teams.
Secondly, playing the One Day Cup in this window provided development opportunities for younger players, offering them their first opportunity to play white ball cricket. Lyndon James, Liam Patterson-White and Farhan Ahmed are notable examples for Nottinghamshire.
The one-day format is also both easier to stage at outgrounds, and to accommodate at county headquarters in between fixtures in The Hundred when possible. For example, we will once again host two One Day Cup matches at Trent Bridge during The Hundred this summer.
Player concerns
A key element of the domestic structure debate is the request from players to have sufficient travel and training time in between fixtures for preparation and rest and recovery. While the players’ union, the PCA, have noted positive strides in recent years, there remains concern about the impact the schedule can have on players’ mental and physical welfare. Read more from the PCA here…
Player, member, supporter and commercial concerns will all be crucial as we work through this latest review of the schedule.