County Championship

The County Championship is the domestic first class cricket competition in the United Kingdom, mainly in England. All but one of teams are named after, and were originally representative of, English counties (the exception being Glamorgan, which is a Welsh county.)

History

The official County Championship began in 1890, before which unofficial championships were contested. The unofficial championships were decided not by any numerical method but rather by popular acclaim.

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The first official championship in 1890 was competed between Gloucestershire, Kent, Lancashire, Middlesex, Nottinghamshire, Surrey, Sussex and Yorkshire, where the side were to play 14 matches (each other twice). The positions were based on number of wins minus the number of losses.

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The following year Somerset also competed in the championship and in 1895 Derbyshire, Essex, Hampshire, Leicestershire and Warwickshire also joined, by now each side had to play at least 16 matches per season. Because, up until World War II, counties played differeing numbers of matches, the points system was slightly modified so that the ratio of points to finished games (games minus draws) decided the Championship.

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In 1910 the system was modified so that the order was based on ratio of matches won to matches played, whilst from 1911 to 1967 a variety of systems were used that generally relied on points for wins or first innings leads in games left unfinished. Since 1968, the basis has been wins (increased from 10 points in 1968 to 12 in 1976 to 16 in 1981) and "bonus points", which are earned for scoring a certain number of runs or taking a certain number of wickets in the first 100 overs of each first innings. In an effort to prevent early finishes, points have been awarded for draws since 1996.

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Of the current 18 sides in County Cricket the remaining joined at the following dates:

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• Worcestershire in 1899
• Northamptonshire in 1905
• Glamorgan in 1921
• Durham in 1992.

More information about the history of the County Championship can be found here.

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