Shake-up for domestic one-day cricket

Ian Bell won the match award at the last Benson & Hedges Trophy final in 2002 © Cricinfo Enlarge

The ECB has given domestic one-day cricket a revamp, starting from 2006. The C&G Trophy will lose its knockout format, but retain the late-August final, while the National League will be played towards the end of the season and its matches will be 40 overs per side. The move follows last month's announcement that all domestic one-day cricket will be played in coloured clothing from next summer.

The C&G Trophy, first as the Gillette Cup and later as the NatWest Trophy, had been a wholly knockout competition since 1963. Its league matches will be scheduled for the start of the summer, much like the old Benson & Hedges Cup, which was replaced in 2003 by Twenty20. There will be two conferences, north and south, made up of the 18 first-class counties, Ireland, and Scotland, who will no longer participate in the National League. The winners of each conference will meet in the final.

Surrey's Mike Soper is the chairman of the domestic structure interim working party which recommended the changes. "I am extremely pleased with the outcome of this report, which was unanimously acclaimed at the recent first-class forum meeting," he told reporters. "We will now have a strong competition in the C&G Trophy which reflects international cricket."