Women's teams to enter 2025 Blast and One-Day Cup
The Blaze won the Charlotte Edwards Cup final in June
- Published
The eight new women's professional teams will enter the T20 Blast and One-Day Cup from next season in a move which will see them "fully aligned" with the men's game.
Durham, Essex, Hampshire, Lancashire, Nottinghamshire, Somerset, Surrey and Warwickshire were awarded Tier 1 status by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) in April as part of a restructure of women's domestic cricket in 2025.
They will all compete under their county names, except the Trent Bridge-based team that will continue to be called The Blaze.
Warwickshire will use the name Birmingham Bears in the T20 Blast like their men's team, while the Red Rose county will be called Lancashire Thunder.
The ECB said: "The new professional structure will see £8m of new funding per year being invested into women’s domestic cricket by 2027 – taking annual investment in this area to £19m – and could produce an 80% increase in the number of professional female players in England and Wales by 2029."
It continued: "A knockout cup competition consisting of teams from all three tiers of the expanded women’s domestic structure will also form part of the 2025 schedule.
"The aim of the cup competition is to provide all counties with the opportunity to compete against each other, play at some of the country’s biggest venues, and give players across the pyramid the chance to test their skills on an elevated platform."
It is expected there will be a number of women's and men's double-headers as part of next summer's T20 Blast schedule.
The restructure means a move away from the regional format in place for the past few years, meaning the 20-over Charlotte Edwards Cup and 50-over Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy will cease this summer.
Beth Barrett-Wild, director of the women's professional game, said: "A big driver for the reorganisation has been to enable us to better use the leverage and existing scale of men’s county cricket to accelerate fanbase growth for our women's teams and players."
She added: "As we have seen through The Hundred and alignment of our England Men’s and England Women’s teams, we believe that by putting our men’s and women’s competitions and players on the same platform we can exponentially increase the reach of the women’s domestic game and intensify the depth of feeling fans have for our women’s teams moving forwards."