In an attempt to address issues that have occurred over the last couple of seasons in the Inter-County Championships a new format being put in place for the 2025/26 season has been outlined by I.C.C Secretary Steve Bailey. The system that has been in place for years, which comprised of separate Premier and “A” Team groups, will be dispensed with. In its place will be up to nine groups but if any county enters two county teams they will be put into different groups. Steve Bailey has put together proposed groups for 2025/26 based on this year’s entries but of course they will be subject to change. These proposed groups have one Norfolk team playing in a group with Northants, Cambridgeshire & West Mids while the other Norfolk team is in a group with Essex, Suffolk & Hertfordshire. No county will have two teams in the same initial group. Each county with two teams will have to nominate ten players who will be tied from the start while the other players can play a maximum of two games for either side before they become tied. All players playing in the knock-out stages are tied to that team. After the round robin stages the competition will split into three competitions with the winners of the group into Premier One, the runners-up into Premier Two and the third and fourth placed teams going into what would have been the “A Team” Competition. Another innovation is that team names can be anything, subject to ESMBA approval, and not necessarily Norfolk Premier and Norfolk “A” but anything such as Norfolk Stars, Norfolk Canaries, Norfolk’s Nelsons Army, Norfolk Nomads or whatever.
ESMBA Inter-County Championship Secretary Steve Bailey