Latest News

It has been announced that both Essex Premier and Essex “A” have withdrawn from the 2023/24 ESMBA Inter-County Championships. A statement from the Essex SMBA said that “Unfortunately due to the lack of available physical dates, and the expected travel time, the committee have come to the agreement that regretfully Essex will not be able to participate in the ICC this forthcoming season. The committee will be working hard to rectify this situation and we would hope to participate in future years.” The Norfolk CSMBA also have similar problems, partly due to the extreme lateness of the publication of the ESMBA diary for the 2023/24 season, and the worst case scenario is that Norfolk may have to follow suit. When the diary was finally published by the ESMBA, over four months later that normal, two of the three dates stipulated for Norfolk’s home double headers had already been booked at Norfolk’s county venue by others. The effect on Norfolk of the withdrawal of Essex is that Norfolk “A” will now play in just a three team group with their only opposition Worcestershire and the West Mids “A” team. The growth of weekends in the ESMBA diary when County Associations are not allowed to hold National qualifiers has been an increasing problem in recent years. This is an issue that has been highlighted before by the Norfolk CSMBA and is becoming a serious problem that sooner or later will have to be addressed.