Twenty20 Cup audiences to top a quarter of a million

With a sell-out virtually guaranteed for the Twenty20 Cup Final at Trent Bridge on Saturday 19 July, Twenty20 Cup audiences are set to touch 255,000 for the whole competition.

Spectator numbers for the 45 group matches, which finished last night, reached 240,000 at an average of 5,330 per match. The capacity for Trent Bridge is over 15,000.

The Twenty20 Cup replaced the Benson & Hedges Cup in the county cricket calendar. The total attendance for the 2002 Benson & Hedges Cup was 104,082 in 52 matches. Group matches accounted for 68,018 of this total, at an average of 1,511 per match.

Tim Lamb, ECB Chief Executive, said, "There's no doubt that the Twenty20 Cup has been a real success this year with a number of counties boasting record crowds, which is excellent news for county cricket. It shows that there is a healthy appetite for watching county cricket, particularly if games are scheduled at convenient times for people to come and watch."

Each of the four semi-finalists - Surrey, Gloucestershire, Leicestershire and Warwickshire - has been allocated 1,500 tickets each for Finals Day. These can be accessed through the individual county clubs. Tickets for the remainder of the ground have already sold out.