County Championship 2022: Extra matches to be played in June and July

The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) on Thursday has officially confirmed the fixtures for the 2022 County season. The men’s domestic summer will begin on 7 April with the opening round of the all-important County Championship game.

As per reports, the five County Championship matches that will be played in June and July ahead of the South Africa series in August will be very important for a revival in England’s fortunes in the longest format according to ECB.

County Championship is the blue-riband event: ECB managing director

Extra County Championship matches will be played in June and July in 2022 following calls for more red-ball cricket in England in mid-summer according to BBC Sport.  “It needs a comprehensive review. Hopefully, we can start making some changes from 2023,” said Neil Snowball, ECB managing director of county cricket.

“But the County Championship is the blue-riband event. It is the primary first-class, red-ball competition. I don’t see that changing”, he added.

Apart from the County Championship, the domestic T20 competition, The Vitality Blast will run over a seven-week period from 25 May  to 16 July followed by the Royal London Cup from 2 August to 17 September.

The call for more red-ball cricket in the mid-summer reportedly comes in the wake of England’s humiliating performances in the traditional format in the year gone by. After a 2-0 clean sweep on Sri Lankan soil in January last year, and a one-sided dominance in the series-opener against India at Chepauk, it all went downhill for the Joe Root-led side in Test cricket as they suffered a 3-1 defeat in that series apart from failing to qualify for the inaugural edition of the ICC World Test Championship final.

They then went on to lose the home series to the eventual WTC champions New Zealand 1-0 before trailing 1-2 to India in the five-match Test series with one game scheduled to play in July this year.

The Ashes 2021/22 series added insult to injury as the Aussies successfully retained the ‘urn’ without breaking a sweat in the first three matches and while the SCG Test ended in a stalemate courtesy of some resistance from the tail-enders, Root & Co. lost the final Test at Hobart by a huge margin of 146 runs to end the series on a disastrous note.