ECB reveals details on floodlit Championship

English cricket's groundbreaking first full round of floodlit County Championship fixtures will be staged on June 26 next season, only five days after the summer solstice.

The details are revealed in the full fixtures for the 2017 county season which also includes more weekend Championship cricket, the NatWest T20 Blast moving to a midsummer block and the last day of the Championship season pushed back to September 28.

The experiment forms part of a crammed season in which England also stages the Champions Trophy in June and features an international schedule that runs from Ireland's visit on May 5 until an ODI against West Indies at the Ageas Bowl as late as September 29. The Women's World Cup also takes place in England in July.

Whether floodlit Championship cricket has any success in widening the fan base remains to be seen, but one thing that can be assured is that it will not bankrupt the counties because of excessive electricity bills. With sunset not until around 9.20pm in late June, the floodlights will probably only be used for the final session.

The announcement breaks new ground for the County Championship, which has only featured one previous day-night match - a trial game between Kent and Glamorgan at Canterbury in 2011.

The ECB hopes to stimulate new interest in the Championship, although of more relevance perhaps is the opportunity for England players to experience the conditions before Edgbaston hosts the inaugural floodlit Test in the UK, between England and West Indies between August 17-21.

With West Indies also getting a trial run under lights ahead of the Edgbaston Test, against Derbyshire from August 11-13, it means that 10 of the 18 first-class counties will stage day-night fixtures with pink balls next summer.

Dukes pink balls will be used - the regular make of ball for international cricket in England - even though many of the experiments over the past decade have been with the Kookaburra ball, which is normally held to be less receptive to swing.

Tom Harrison, the ECB's chief executive, who confirmed the floodlit experiment last month, said: "We were excited to announce a few weeks ago that Edgbaston will be staging an historic day-night Test, and it's great that the counties, and the Specsavers County Championship, can also get involved.

"It was important for us to arrange a full round of fixtures to give our England players the chance to experience the conditions. But just as we wanted to assess the impact of making Test cricket more accessible by changing the hours of play, the counties have really embraced the potential of Championship matches that stretch well into the evening when people have finished school or work.

"The early indications from Edgbaston are that day-night Test cricket is proving very popular, and hopefully it will be the same for the Championship now the fixtures are confirmed. It will be fascinating to see how it works out."

In the latest tweak to the county schedule, seven Championship rounds begin on a Friday in 2017, meaning a significant increase in the amount of weekend Championship cricket. The season begins on April 7 and the final round of matches does not begin until September 25.

Essex, last year's Division Two champions, begin their first Division One season since 2010 with a home game against Lancashire, while Andrew Gale will have home advantage at Headingley against Hampshire - spared from relegation by Durham's punishment for falling into debt - in his first match as Yorkshire's coach.

Middlesex, who won their first Championship title since 1993 in such thrilling circumstances by beating Yorkshire at Lord's in September, are not in action until the second round of matches, starting on Friday April 14, when they visit Hampshire.

The long-running debate over the future of professional T20 cricket in England also takes another twist as the NatWest T20 Blast reverts to a block of fixtures. It will begin on July 7 and dominate the next seven weeks of the county season, with teams contesting 14 group matches in a concentrated period in high summer rather than spread over three months as previously.

With emphasis turning entirely to T20 as the schools break up, no Championship matches are scheduled for almost four weeks during that period.

The success, or otherwise, of the new format, may provide political ammunition in the long-running debate about whether an eight-team city league would be the saviour for an English professional game with combined debts of £150m (although the ECB has roughly half that in reserve) or whether it would shrink the game by forcing some counties into irrelevance and bankruptcy.

The top four in each of the North and South groups will again qualify for the Blast quarter-finals, which will be played on four consecutive evenings from August 22-25 ahead of Finals Day at Edgbaston on September 2.

The Royal London Cup is brought forward to early season, with all the group matches completed before the Champions Trophy in June. A change to the format will see the top two from each group go straight into the semi-finals, with the second- and third-placed teams contesting a pair of play-offs. One outcome that should be widely welcomed is that the Lord's final takes place on July 1.