County Championship: Extra June and July games scheduled in 2022 fixtures

Extra County Championship matches will be played in June and July in 2022 following calls for more red-ball cricket in England in mid-summer.

Five rounds will be in the height of summer, two more than 2021, as the competition reverts to two divisions.

But ECB managing director of county cricket Neil Snowball has said even more changes are likely next season.

«It needs a comprehensive review. Hopefully we can start making some changes from 2023,» Snowball said.

«But the County Championship is the blue-riband event. It is the primary first-class, red-ball competition. I don't see that changing.

»Fewer matches might help. One of the things we say every year is we're playing an awful lot of domestic cricket, and some feel people would feel we're playing too much.

«We talk a lot to the players, we talk a lot to the Professional Cricketers' Association (PCA), who focus on play-travel-play-travel-play-travel and not an awful lot of rest and practice.

»It's the quality of the cricket we're playing in the right conditions. That's what we need to try to focus on."

The feelgood factor that followed England's men winning the 2019 World Cup has seemingly evaporated in the past two and a half years.

Not only has the Covid-19 pandemic had a big effect on the game at Test and domestic level, but fingers have been pointed at both the increase of white-ball cricket and the existing red-ball structure in the English game.

Calls for a restructured programme in domestic cricket have only heightened after England's men lost the recent Ashes series 4-0.

«There is absolute commitment to do that,» Snowball added.

«But, in terms of where we're at, it's still early days. We're still putting together the feedback from the tour and then we need to get the