Women's County Championship
The Women's County Championship, known since 2014 as the Royal London Women’s One-Day Cup, is a women's cricket competition organised by the England and Wales Cricket Board. It is the women's equivalent of the County Championship, although it operates as a 50-over limited overs cricket competition with teams organised into a number of divisions. It was introduced in 1997 to replace the Women's Area Championship.
The teams competing in the Championship are drawn mostly from the historic counties of England, with 34 teams representing these. The Scottish national side has competed in the competition since 2007, the Wales women's national cricket team since 2008 and the Netherlands joined in 2009. The Ireland national team played in the competition between 2009 and 2015 before withdrawing in early 2016, causing fixtures for the 2016 season to be rescheduled and one fewer team to compete in Division 2 during the 2016 season.
The competition is the longest established women's cricket competition in England and Wales. It operates alongside the Women's Twenty20 Cup, established in 2009, and the Women's Cricket Super League, a franchise league with six teams initially playing Twenty20 cricket.
The current champions are Kent who won the 2019 Championship after winning all of their first eight matches. Kent is also the most successful county in the history of the Championship with eight titles as of May 2019. Sussex and Yorkshire have both won six titles.
History
The inaugural Women's County Championship took place in 1997, with 16 teams competing in three divisions. This first tournament was organised and run by the Women's Cricket Association, which voted to merge with the England and Wales Cricket Board on 29 March 1998. As such, the ECB has administered the competition since 1998.Structure
The 34 teams that make up the Championship are split into three divisions, with the bottom division now split into three groups. The top two divisions are each made up of eight teams, with the bottom two teams relegated from Division One at the end of the season and the top two teams in Division Two taking their place. Previously a four division system had been used with the bottom division split into two groups, but this was replaced with the present structure ahead of the 2017 Championship.The top two divisions for the 2019 season are each made up of eight teams.
- Hampshire
- Kent
- Lancashire
- Nottinghamshire
- Surrey
- Sussex
- Warwickshire
- Yorkshire
- Berkshire
- Devon
- Durham
- Essex
- Middlesex
- Somerset
- Wales
- Worcestershire
| Division Three - Group A | Scotland | Cumbria | Derbyshire | Leicestershire | Lincolnshire | Northumberland | Staffordshire |
| Division Three - Group B | Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire | Hertfordshire | Netherlands | Norfolk | Northamptonshire | Suffolk | - |
| Division Three - Group C | Buckinghamshire | Cornwall | Dorset | Gloucestershire | Oxfordshire | Wiltshire | - |