Grace Ballinger column: Summer weather to greet T20 Blast

There will be 12 group fixtures in both competitions. For us, we will play every other team in the league once, and half of the league twice (coincidentally, we play all the northern teams twice, but I believe that it is random for all the other sides).

In the men’s game, there are three groups of six teams apiece, grouped geographically as North, Central, and South. Each team plays every side in their group both home and away once, as well as playing two random teams outside their group (one home, one away).

The women’s Finals Day – which was previously the top three in the competition – has now been changed to mimic the men’s Finals Day, with four teams.

It will now be made up of two semi-finals and a final, as opposed to an eliminator and a final.

And it goes without saying that the men’s Finals Day – always at Edgbaston – is iconic, and something that I would love to see emulated in the women’s game in many ways.

However, I do question the increase of the amount of teams at Finals Day. The men’s Blast has 18 teams, so getting to the final four is certainly difficult.

The women’s professional T20 Blast, on the contrary, is composed of only nine teams, meaning nearly half the teams who play in the tournament will be at Finals Day.

This, to me, seems too many, although maybe I will feel differently if the Blaze finish fourth in the group stages.