T20 Blast Finals short of star power due to scheduling due to absence of England, South Africa and overseas players.
‘Ludicrous’ scheduling leaves T20 Finals Day shorn of star billing.
Due to the “absolutely ludicrous” scheduling of the T20 Blast, all four of the teams participating in Saturday’s Finals Day will be missing important players for the county calendar’s highlight event.
The Blast, which is now in its 23rd season, is the world’s oldest and longest professional T20 competition. The 2025 tournament began in late May and will conclude more than 15 weeks later at Edgbaston on Saturday. The first semi-final will pit Lancashire against Somerset, the second will pit Northamptonshire against Hampshire, and the final will round out the day.
For the past two seasons, counties have decided to hold the Blast’s knockout stages in September because it gives them more time to sell tickets for the quarterfinals because there is a significant break after the group stage, which is when the Hundred is held. However, it also reduces the number of players available on Finals Day, as England participates in white-ball series and players from other countries depart.
Finals Day is scheduled for July 18, just before the Hundred begins, and the ECB confirmed on Friday that the Blast’s knockout stages will be moved forward to the next summer. Next year’s Blast will also have a different format, with teams playing 12 group games instead of 14 and being divided into three groups of six instead of two groups of nine.
This season, Lancashire is especially hard hit, as both of their abroad players are unavailable and four players—Jos Buttler, Saqib Mahmood, Phil Salt, and Luke Wood—are absent from England duty. Ashton Turner has been called up by Western Australia in front of the state season beginning next week, while Chris Green is playing for the Barbados Royals in the CPL.
“It’s not ideal,” Keaton Jennings, their captain, told BBC Radio Lancashire. “I don’t want to point fingers [but] I do think the scheduling is absolutely ludicrous. You can’t have eight weeks between a last group-stage game and a final. There’s no other competition in the world that does that… It is frustrating. It feels like a massive kick in the teeth.”