Vitality Blast 2026 Fixtures: Full T20 Schedule & Dates

The Vitality Blast 2026 fixtures ran from Friday 22 May to Sunday 12 July in the group stage, with quarter-finals on Wednesday 15 July and men's Finals Day at Edgbaston on Saturday 18 July. Northamptonshire Steelbacks won it, beating Hampshire Hawks in the final for their third Blast title. The competition is therefore complete for this season, and what follows is the full shape of the schedule as it was played, the knockout results, and how the fixture list is built each year so you know what to expect when the 2027 dates land.

The headline structural change in 2026 was the move from two groups of nine to three regional groups of six, which cut each county's group programme from fourteen matches to twelve — six at home and six away. That reshaped the fixture list more than any change since the competition became a T20 Blast, and it is the reason the 2026 schedule looks unfamiliar next to the 2024 or 2025 versions.

Vitality Blast 2026 key dates

Stage	Date	Detail
Opening night	Friday 22 May 2026	Full slate of matches across all three groups
Group stage	22 May to 12 July 2026	12 matches per county, six home and six away
Finale weekend	10 to 12 July 2026	Final round of group fixtures, qualification settled
Quarter-finals	Wednesday 15 July 2026	Four ties, hosted by the higher-placed qualifiers
Men's Finals Day	Saturday 18 July 2026	Two semi-finals and the final, Edgbaston
Women's Finals Day	Friday 17 July 2026	Two semi-finals and the final, the Kia Oval

Somerset began the season as defending champions, having beaten Hampshire in the 2025 final, and opened their 2026 campaign against the same opposition on the first Friday night — a neat piece of fixture-planning that the ECB does deliberately.

How the 2026 group programme was laid out

Each county played twelve group matches: ten inside its own group, home and away against all five rivals, plus two cross-group fixtures, one home and one away. That is the mechanism that lets a Somerset side meet Middlesex in a season where they are not in the same group, and it is what stops three groups of six from feeling like three separate competitions.

Roughly eighty per cent of men's group matches were scheduled on Fridays, Sundays or bank holidays. This is the single most important thing to know about Blast fixtures if you are planning to attend: the competition is built around evenings and weekends when people can actually come, not around the midweek slots the four-day game occupies. The 2026 list also cut back-to-back matches — a county playing on consecutive days — from more than fifty across the competition to six, which was the players' association's main ask in the review.

The other structural feature was the double header. Sixty-one double headers were scheduled across the men's and women's competitions in 2026, meaning one ticket, one ground and two matches. Yorkshire entered the women's Tier 1 competition for the first time, which produced a first Roses double header at Emirates Old Trafford on Friday 10 July.

Typical start times and match-day shape

Blast fixtures follow a predictable clock rather than a published-in-April certainty, and start times vary by ground and by whether the fixture is part of a double header.

Slot	Typical first ball (BST)	Notes
Friday and weekday evenings	6.30pm	The standard Blast slot, finishing around 9.45pm
Sunday afternoons	2.30pm or 3.00pm	Family slot at most grounds
Bank holidays	Afternoon	Frequently a double header
Double headers	Women's match first, men's follow-on	Combined ticket, one admission

Because the exact time is set ground by ground and can be moved for broadcast, always confirm with the county in the week of the match. The pattern above is reliable; a specific 6.30pm on a specific Thursday is not.

Group stage venues

Every county staged six home group matches at its headquarters, with a handful of outground and secondary-venue fixtures as usual — Kent at Beckenham, Middlesex away from Lord's, and so on. The full list of first-class venues, with the nearest station for each, is in our County Championship grounds guide, and it applies equally to the Blast.

The one venue that only appears once in the calendar is Edgbaston on Finals Day. Birmingham has hosted the men's showpiece since 2001 and the ground sold out again in 2026.

The derbies the new groups guaranteed

One of the stated aims of the three-group structure was to make sure the local fixtures happened twice a season rather than being left to the luck of a two-group draw. It worked. Because the groups are drawn on geography, every one of the traditional rivalries sat inside a group and was therefore played home and away.

Derby	Counties	Group
Roses	Yorkshire v Lancashire Lightning	North
London derby	Surrey v Middlesex	South
West Country	Somerset v Gloucestershire	Central
Midlands	Warwickshire Bears v Worcestershire Rapids	Central
Trent	Notts Outlaws v Derbyshire Falcons	North
South Coast	Hampshire Hawks v Sussex Sharks	South

Those six pairings account for a disproportionate share of the competition's attendance. A Friday-night Roses match at Emirates Old Trafford or a Surrey–Middlesex evening at the Kia Oval will sell out weeks in advance while a midweek fixture at the same ground will not, which is exactly why the ECB wanted them locked in. The Roses rivalry guide covers why that particular one carries the weight it does.

Tickets: the pattern each season

Blast tickets typically go on sale to county members first, in the winter shortly after the fixture list appears, with general sale following a few weeks later. Adult prices for a group match generally sit in the fifteen to thirty-five pound range depending on the county and the fixture, with under-16s substantially cheaper and family tickets widely available. Finals Day at Edgbaston is a ballot-and-priority affair that sells out months ahead — it did again in 2026 — and quarter-final tickets can only realistically go on sale once the host is known, which gives supporters a matter of days.

None of those prices are fixed, and every county sets its own. Treat the bands as the shape of the market rather than a quotation, and buy from the county rather than a resale site.

Quarter-finals: Wednesday 15 July 2026

Eight counties reached the last eight: Hampshire, Essex, Northamptonshire, Gloucestershire, Nottinghamshire, Surrey, Yorkshire and Somerset. All four ties were played on the same Wednesday evening, with home advantage going to the higher-placed qualifiers.

Tie	Result
Hampshire Hawks v Essex	Hampshire won by 75 runs
Northamptonshire Steelbacks v Gloucestershire	Northamptonshire won by 8 wickets
Notts Outlaws v Surrey	Nottinghamshire won a tight finish
Yorkshire v Somerset	Somerset won by 2 wickets

The Headingley tie was the one people will remember. Somerset were 82 for 8 chasing 162 in the fifteenth over and won with a ball to spare, Craig Overton making 79 not out from 30 deliveries to drag the defending champions into Finals Day from a position that had looked finished.

Finals Day, Edgbaston, Saturday 18 July 2026

Match	Result
Semi-final 1	Northamptonshire Steelbacks beat Somerset by 17 runs
Semi-final 2	Hampshire Hawks beat Notts Outlaws by 27 runs
Final	Northamptonshire Steelbacks beat Hampshire Hawks by 14 runs

Northamptonshire's win was their third Blast title, following 2013 and 2016, and it came against a Hampshire side losing a second successive final. Ricardo Vasconcelos made 88 for the Steelbacks and Joe Weatherley 75 for Hampshire, with the last Hampshire wicket falling to end a chase that had swung several times.

For the wider context — how the day is structured, why Edgbaston keeps it and what the Hollies Stand is like from ten in the morning — see the T20 Blast history and format guide.

When the fixtures are published and how they change

The Blast fixture list is normally released with the rest of the domestic schedule in the autumn before the season, alongside the County Championship and the One-Day Cup lists. That gives counties and supporters roughly six months' notice.

Dates do move. Broadcast selections shift start times, weather can force a rearrangement inside the group stage, and the compressed 2026 window between late May and mid-July left less slack than in previous seasons. The ECB publishes the definitive list, each county publishes its own, and where the two disagree, the county's ticketing page is normally the one that has been updated most recently.

Where the Blast sits in the English summer

The Blast now occupies a genuinely tight corridor: it starts after the first block of Championship rounds, it finishes before The Hundred begins, and it has to fit around England's international programme. That is why the 2026 group stage was squeezed into seven and a half weeks, and it is why the counties argued so hard about the fixture volume before agreeing to twelve matches each.

The consequence for supporters is that the Blast is now a concentrated burst rather than a summer-long presence. If you want to see your county play T20 at home you have six chances, mostly on Friday nights, and the tickets go faster than they used to. The English domestic cricket structure guide sets out how the three competitions and the franchise tournament fit together, and the England cricket hub collects the rest of the 2026 season.

FAQ

When did the Vitality Blast 2026 start and finish?

The group stage ran from Friday 22 May to Sunday 12 July 2026. Quarter-finals were played on Wednesday 15 July and Finals Day at Edgbaston on Saturday 18 July.

How many matches did each county play in the Blast 2026?

Twelve group matches — six at home and six away. Ten of those were against the five other counties in their own group, plus two cross-group fixtures.

Who won the Vitality Blast 2026?

Northamptonshire Steelbacks, who beat Hampshire Hawks by 14 runs in the final at Edgbaston on 18 July. It was Northamptonshire's third Blast title after 2013 and 2016.

What time do Vitality Blast matches start?

Evening fixtures are usually 6.30pm BST, with Sunday and bank holiday matches in the afternoon and double headers starting earlier with the women's game. Individual start times are set by the host county.

When are the Vitality Blast 2027 fixtures released?

The domestic fixture list is normally published in the autumn before the season, so expect the 2027 Blast dates late in 2026. The ECB and each county publish simultaneously.

Were Blast matches on TV in 2026?

Sky Sports Cricket holds the main broadcast rights to the competition and shows a large selection of matches, with counties streaming some fixtures themselves. Rights arrangements change between cycles, so check the current listing rather than assuming last season's pattern.

What is the difference between the Vitality Blast and The Hundred?

The Blast is the counties' own T20 competition, played by all eighteen first-class counties in a 20-over format. The Hundred is a separate eight-team city franchise tournament played over 100 balls a side, later in the summer. The Hundred explained guide covers the distinction in detail. For the group structure and qualification maths behind this season's Blast, see our Vitality Blast 2026 groups page.