County Championship

This article is about the county cricket championship. For other uses, see County Championship (disambiguation).
"Champion County" redirects here. For the Champion County match traditionally played by the winners of the Championship, see Champion County match.

County Championship
Countries England
 Wales
AdministratorEngland and Wales Cricket Board
FormatFirst-class
First edition1890
Latest edition2024
Next edition2025
Tournament formatTwo divisions
home and away 4-day fixtures
Number of teams18
Current championSurrey (23 titles including 1 shared)
Most successfulYorkshire (32 titles + 1 shared)
Most runsPhil Mead (46,268)[1]
Most wicketsTich Freeman (3,151)[2]
2024 County Championship

The County Championship, currently known for sponsorship reasons as the Vitality County Championship,[3] is the only domestic first-class cricket competition in England and Wales. Established in 1890, it is organised by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) as a two-league system. The tournament is contested by eighteen clubs representing the historic counties of England and (in one case) Wales. The reigning champions are Surrey.

The earliest known inter-county match was played in 1709. Until 1889, the concept of an unofficial county championship existed whereby various claims would be made by or on behalf of a particular club as the "Champion County", an archaic term which now has the specific meaning of a claimant for the unofficial title prior to 1890. In contrast, the term "County Champions" applies in common parlance to a team that has won the official title. The most usual means of claiming the unofficial title was by popular or press acclaim. In the majority of cases, the claim or proclamation was retrospective, often by cricket writers using reverse analysis via a study of known results. The unofficial title was not proclaimed in every season up to 1889 because in many cases there were not enough matches or there was simply no clear candidate. Having already been badly hit by the Seven Years' War, county cricket ceased altogether during the Napoleonic Wars and there was a period from 1797 to 1824 during which no inter-county matches took place. The concept of the unofficial title has been utilised ad hoc and relied on sufficient interest being shown.

The official County Championship was constituted on 16 December 1889, when secretaries of the major clubs gathered at Lord's to decide the following season's fixtures. Simultaneously, representatives of the eight leading countries met privately to determine how teams would be ranked.[4] The new competition began in the 1890 season and at first involved just the eight leading clubs: Gloucestershire, Kent, Lancashire, Middlesex, Nottinghamshire, Surrey, Sussex and Yorkshire. Subsequently, the championship has been expanded to 18 clubs by the additions at various times of Derbyshire, Durham, Essex, Glamorgan, Hampshire, Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Somerset, Warwickshire and Worcestershire. Counties without first-class status compete in the National Counties Cricket Championship.

  1. ^ "The Home of CricketArchive". cricketarchive.com. Archived from the original on 21 February 2009. Retrieved 9 September 2017.
  2. ^ "The Home of CricketArchive". cricketarchive.com. Archived from the original on 21 February 2009. Retrieved 9 September 2017.
  3. ^ "Vitality and ECB extend partnership with new three-year deal". www.ecb.co.uk. 12 April 2024. Archived from the original on 24 May 2024. Retrieved 12 April 2024.
  4. ^ Brooke, Robert (1991). A History of the County Cricket Championship. Enfield: Guinness Publishing. p. 8. ISBN 0851129196.