England revolutionize women’s cricket by aligning with men’s T20 Blast and One-Day Cup starting 2025

England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has made a change in their domestic competitions. The women's tournaments, both in the 20-over format and 50-over format, will be played alongside men's T20 Blast and the One-Day Cup from the 2025 season.

The two women's competitions will be played in place of the existing Charlotte Edwards Cup (T20) and Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy (50-over). But they will be played for the trophies that will be named after the two England legends.

The restructured domestic competitions will see eight teams from tier 1 counties in Durham, Essex, Hampshire, Lancashire (Lancashire Thunder), Somerset, Surrey, Warwickshire (Birmingham Bears) and Nottinghamshire (The Blaze). Yorkshire and Glamorgan will be added to the group later.

The T20 Blast will be played in the same way as the men's competition. Both semi-finals and finals will be played on the same day while double headers featuring both the men's and the women's game have been planned similar to how The Hundred is currently scheduled.

Apart from this, a knockout competition has been scheduled in 2025 which will see teams from all three tiers of the expanded women's domestic structure. The tournament has been introduced so that all the counties have the opportunity to compete against each other and Test their skills at the highest levels.

With the restructuring of the domestic competitions, the England and Wales Cricket Board expects to see GBP 8 million of investment into women's cricket by 2027 and could see an 80 percent increase in the number of professional female cricketers in England and Wales by 2029.

Excited to fully align our men's and women's domestic white-ball competitions for the first time - England's Director of the Women's Professional Game, Beth Barrett-Wild,

ECB Director of the Women's Professional Game, Beth Barrett-Wild, talked about the change in the domestic competitions, saying that they are excited to see men's and women's competitions align at the same time. She added that they want to produce teams that will excite fans and raise the quality of women's cricket.

"A big driver for the re-organisation of women's professional cricket has been to enable us to better use the leverage and existing scale of men's county cricket to accelerate fanbase growth for our women's teams and players. Looking ahead to the 2025 season, we're therefore really excited to fully align our men's and women's domestic white-ball competitions for the first time.

"The next step in the growth of the women's professional game is to produce commercially vibrant and visible teams and competitions that excite fans and continue to showcase the quality of women's cricket."

Beth Barrett-Wild while citing the example of The Hundred said that they want to put players on the same platform. Beth added:

"As we have seen through The Hundred and alignment of our England Men's and England Women's teams, we believe that by putting our men's and women's competitions and players on the same platform we can exponentially increase the reach of the women's domestic game and intensify the depth of feeling fans have for our women's teams moving forwards," she concluded.