With no professional cricket set to take place in England and Wales until at least July 1, the County Championship is the domestic competition that is currently most obviously affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, with nine rounds of the competition originally scheduled to take place before that date.

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The ECB have stated that they view holding the T20 Blast as the priority when it comes to domestic cricket this summer due to the greater revenue stream that competition gives counties. However, in the scenario where cricket does resume in early July, there may well be time for administrators to come up with an alternate first-class competition for the 18 counties that takes place over the course of a few weeks. The ECB does still hold plans to stage red-ball domestic cricket.

https://twitter.com/dizzy259/status/1254419891655852032

Gillespie’s suggestion involves dividing the 18 teams into three groups of six, using the County Championship’s existing points system. Of the three table-toppers, the team with the most points would qualify automatically for the competition’s final, while the other two teams would face each other for a spot in the final. The final of Gillespie’s competition would take place at Lord’s. Last week, Martyn Moxon, the director of cricket at Yorkshire, proposed a similar first-class competition with a “Benson & Hedges-type format.”

https://twitter.com/dizzy259/status/1254409228602601472

A potential problem with Gillespie’s tournament is that it would still take seven weeks to complete. Even in a best-case scenario that sees professional cricket take place in early July, there might not be time to fit in a seven-week first-class competition alongside the T20 Blast.