Vitality Blast 2026: Betting odds, team stats, key facts & live streaming guide
The 2026 Vitality Blast, also known as the T20 Blast, gets underway on May 22, with 18 county teams batting for England’s premier domestic T20 title, writes Sports News Blitz’s Himanshu Sharma.
The competition is divided into three groups, with each county playing 12 group-stage matches, six home and six away fixtures.
County Cricket vs The Hundred: Has the new format strengthened or weakened traditional county structures?
When the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) launched The Hundred in 2021, it promised a revolution.
Branded as a fast-paced, city-based competition with simplified rules and a family-friendly broadcast package, it was marketed as cricket’s gateway to new audiences.
Four years on, the debate over its impact on county cricket remains intense.
Has The Hundred invigorated the domestic game, or has it undermined the very county structures that built English cricket over 150 years?
The truth, as always, sits somewhere in the middle: there have been undeniable successes, but also structural costs that county cricket cannot ignore.
Here, Sports News Blitz writer Ben Phillips analyses the positives and negatives of The Hundred on county cricket, and discusses whether they can continue to coexist.