A season that will see a record 100 competitive blind cricket matches played is just a few days away from starting. One of those games is the completion of the 2023 – the delayed BCEW Primary Club Heindrich Swanepoel cup final. The county ground at Hove has been secured as the venue for Sussex Sharks, playing their second final in a row to take on the 2021 champions Northants Steelbacks.
With both the southern and northern development leagues having a full fixture list of twenty games and the Midlands having sixteen as RNC Hereford Bulldogs return to cricket, albeit playing home fixtures only; there are more development games than national level fixtures.
It’s Development Leagues where the season will start on Sunday 21st April, although four games are off due to waterlogged pitches we do still have Berkshire Stags v Hampshire VICC and Lancashire Lions v Yorkshire Vikings to get things underway.
Somerset VICC will be looking to get back into Division One of the National League, having swapped places with Northants Steelbacks at the end of 2023. The Primary Club cup is being competed for just by the national league level teams so has seven games but the David Townley Memorial Twenty20 Cup will see a dozen games as Berkshire Stags, Bradford & District, Cheshire Cobras and Dorset County VICT are all competing. Those teams had mixed fortunes in the draw but two will compete in the quarter finals – Bradford who got a first round bye and the winner of Berkshire against Dorset.
Thanks to the excellent work of Neil Robson this is set to be a record breaking season for our umpires as at time of writing there were only a handful of matches awaiting a second umpire to be appointed and no games without at least one umpire. Paul Toplis has also done his usual superb job of organising scorers and almost every game already has a scorer appointed.