Coloured clothing in C&G

Mark Alleyne amid the 2004 C&G Trophy victory celebrations © Getty Images Enlarge

Players will wear coloured clothing in Cheltenham & Gloucester Trophy next year, the ECB announced today. After the Benson & Hedges Cup was dropped in 2003 in favour of Twenty20, the C&G Trophy became the only domestic one-day competition in which players still wore whites.

Along with coloured clothing, a white ball has been introduced for the first time to the C&G. However, the new format will not apply to matches involving any Minor Counties, who will still play with a red ball and in whites - but Holland, Ireland, Denmark and Scotland will wear coloured uniforms.

England's major one-day knockout competition has already gone through several changes in its relatively short history. The competition started in 1963, with 65-over matches, and was sponsored by Gillette. After issues about the length of daylight hours for the early rounds, the following year the overs were reduced to 60, which remained the case to the end of 1998, by which time one-day internationals had become firmly established and standardised worldwide to 50 overs a side.

In 1980 Gillette discovered that people associated their name more with cricket than their own core product, and the following year NatWest took over as sponsors. NatWest continued until 2000, then began supporting England's home one-day series; Cheltenham & Gloucester took over from 2001.

The first round of C&G matches in 2005 start on May 3.