The ECB have today announced a further delay to the cricket season suggesting that there won’t be any professional cricket played in England and Wales until at least 1^st July 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

In a statement the governing body suggested “Nine rounds of fixtures will be lost in the County Championship season, but blocks for red-ball cricket and white-ball cricket will be held in a revised schedule.”

“The Vitality Blast will be pushed as late in the season as possible to give it the best opportunity of being staged. All matches previously scheduled in June will be moved later in the season.”

And “International cricket, featuring the England men’s and women’s teams, will look to be scheduled from July until the end of September, with the West Indies Test Series and the whole women’s series against India (Vitality IT20s and Royal London ODIs) both moving from their original slots.”

The ECB stated “Our role as a national governing body during a crisis of this scale requires us to carefully plan alongside cricket’s stakeholders and supporters to attempt to overcome COVID-19’s impact on this season.”

“As much as we remain hopeful that we can deliver some cricket this summer, we are in the midst of a worldwide crisis and our priority – over and above the playing of professional sport –  will be to protect the vulnerable, key workers and society as a whole.”

The decision will affect matches for Nottinghamshire and all games played at Trent Bridge including the Hundred competition which was scheduled to debut this summer involving our new Nottingham franchise Trent Rockets as the East Midlands based team.

On announcing the news the ECB Chief Executive Officer Tom Harrison also stated “I want to thank everyone involved in this complex and sensitive work.  There have clearly never been times like this and my colleagues at the ECB and across the game have been exemplary in this period. It has been refreshing, but not surprising, to see how cricket has come together.”

*Main image @TrentBridge the famous old venue won’t be seeing any cricket until at least another 2 months.