Top division back to 10 teams

County cricket will revert to a first division of 10 teams from 2020 in a bid to stop short-term decisionmaking by coaches fearing the sack.

The changes announced yesterday mean three teams will be promoted to Division One next season and only one relegated, to enable the switch to a 10-team first division, with eight in the second.

The County Championship schedule will continue to feature 14 matches, and a seeding system will be introduced to decide who plays who twice in a season.

The summer of 2020 will bring the biggest shake-up of domestic cricket since the introduction of Twenty20 in 2003. The England and Wales Cricket Board will launch The Hundred although, because it has yet to be formally signed off, the official release yesterday intriguingly referred only to the “new competition”. The changes are the result of the findings of a working party led by Wasim Khan, chief executive of Leicestershire.

One major concern was that the threat of relegation hanging over coaches meant that counties invested in Kolpak players or signings from smaller counties rather than gambling on their own young English players.

The other major change involves the county 50-over competition being played during The Hundred in 2020. It is a sidelining of the 50over game after the World Cup next year as cricket focuses ever more on the shortened formats. Overseas players will not be allowed in the 50-over competition, to avoid counties and city-based teams trying to outbid each other for talent.

The Vitality Blast will remain in its current format after counties fought off attempts to reduce the number of matches.