Domestic first-class cricket: the 2025-26 and 2026 champions, and what makes a match first-class.

Status on 22 October 2026

All three are finished. Domestic first-class competitions in other countries were not covered in our research.

County Championship 2026

Through search summaries of two ECB articles: Warwickshire won Division One after winning their last four matches. In Division Two, Durham finished top and unbeaten, with nine wins from their 14 matches, and Kent were promoted with them. The relegated sides were not part of our research, so we do not name them.

Sheffield Shield 2025-26

South Australia beat Victoria by 56 runs in the final at the Junction Oval in Melbourne, which ended on 30 March 2026 (cricket.com.au). It was South Australia's second Shield title in a row, which cricket.com.au says the state had never done before. Nathan McAndrew was Player of the Final.

Ranji Trophy 2025-26

The final, Karnataka v Jammu and Kashmir at Hubballi, was drawn on 28 February 2026. Jammu and Kashmir took the title on their first-innings lead, having made 584 to Karnataka's 293, and it was their first Ranji Trophy (BCCI video captions; press reports including the Qatar Tribune).

What first-class means

The ICC's Classification of Official Cricket, in its edition with effect from 1 July 2026, defines a first-class match as one between two sides of eleven, of two innings each, scheduled for three days or more, played on natural turf and substantially under the ICC's standard playing conditions. The same definition applies to men's and women's cricket.

• Who decides. The ICC sets the status of matches in its own competitions. Otherwise the Full Member in whose country the match is played decides, with separate rules for neutral venues.
• Replacements. A Full Member may allow full playing replacements for any reason without the match losing first-class status, and a concussed player may be replaced by a full-playing substitute without loss of status.
• Age groups. Age-group matches up to and including under-19 are never first-class.

List A and Twenty20

The same document defines List A matches as ODIs, or one-innings matches of at least 40 overs a side at state, county or provincial level or above (franchise competitions in Full Member countries included), when the governing body grants that status; a match cut below 40 overs by weather keeps it. List A Twenty20 is the 20-over equivalent. The ICC says the List A idea came from the Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians, which alone classified men's limited-overs matches before 2007; since 2007 the ICC has owned the definition and left decisions to Full Members.

For England, the ICC's appendix lists the County Championship as first-class, the One Day Cup as List A, and the Men's Blast and The Men's Hundred as Twenty20; on the women's side it lists the Women's One Day Cup as List A and the Women's Blast and Women's Hundred as Twenty20.

How old these competitions are

The ICC's history pages date South Africa's Currie Cup to 1889-90 and the official County Championship in England to 1890, and place the start of the Sheffield Shield in Australia three years after the County Championship, without naming the season.

Domestic limited-overs cricket came later. The ICC says English counties began playing one-innings limited-overs matches in 1963, after slow play and low scoring had driven attendances down in the 1950s, and that a national league followed in 1969. MCC says the first of these, the Gillette Cup, was a knockout with 65-over innings, and that Sussex, captained by Ted Dexter, beat Worcestershire by 14 runs in its first final at Lord's; ESPNcricinfo's scorecard dates that final to 7 September 1963. The ICC says Twenty20 was first raised in English county cricket circles and was introduced at professional level in 2003.

How a first-class match is played under the Laws, including draws and the follow-on, is on how a match works and extras, follow-on and results.