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The National Counties, known as the Minor Counties before 2020, are the cricketing counties of England and Wales that do not have first-class status. The game is administered by the National Counties Cricket Association (NCCA), which comes under the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB). There are currently twenty teams in National Counties cricket: nineteen representing historic counties of England, plus the Wales National County Cricket Club.
Of the 39 historic counties of England, 17 have a first-class county cricket team (the 18th first-class county is Glamorgan in Wales) and 19 participate in the National Counties championship.
Since 2021, Cumberland and Westmorland have been represented by Cumbria in the National Counties championship, while the remaining two historic counties, Huntingdonshire and Rutland, have associations with other counties (Huntingdonshire with Cambridgeshire and Rutland with Leicestershire). Despite this, Huntingdonshire has its own Cricket Board, and took part in the English domestic one-day competition between 1999 and 2003. The Isle of Wight, historically a part of Hampshire but now a county in its own right, also has its own Cricket Board.
In 2020, the Minor Counties were rebranded as the National Counties Cricket Association.[1][2]
- ^ "'Minor Counties' to become the National Counties Cricket Association from 2020". BBC Sport. Retrieved 16 January 2019.
- ^ "The Hundred window in England's international schedule". ESPN Cricinfo. Retrieved 9 August 2019.