Matt Maher: Bears’ Blast-Off event is slightly wide of the mark

Yet the opening weekend of this year’s Vitality T20 Blast tournament features perhaps the most bizarre piece of scheduling anyone at the ECB has ever created.

For the second season running, Warwickshire will play a “Blast-Off” event when they host Nottinghamshire at Edgbaston tomorrow, just a couple of hours after Derbyshire face Leicestershire at the same venue in the first part of a double-header.

Except, as the name definitely does not suggest, this year it will not actually be the Bears first match of the tournament. Instead, they will have already blasted off (they hope) their campaign tonight when they play away at Durham.

There is then just the small matter of a 400-mile round-trip and a probably 3am arrival time back in Birmingham for head coach Mark Robinson and his squad to negotiate before they turn attentions to Notts. The tight turnaround is made no less puzzling by the fact that, after tomorrow, the Bears do not play again until travelling to Old Trafford next Friday, before another Saturday afternoon home fixture.

While last year’s Edgbaston Blast-Off event started the tournament, this year it comes 48 hours after the first fixtures.

Though you won’t find anyone at Edgbaston willing to say it in public, there is some mild annoyance at the ECB having essentially nicked their idea. Sending the Bears up to Durham less than 24 hours before their own showpiece will have done little to change that.

This year has seen seven other venues hosting Blast-Off double headers which see Vitality Blast fixtures take place after those in the Charlotte Edwards Cup.

A more than sound proposition, work may yet be required in the execution. Yesterday, for example, saw the Central Sparks take on Thunder at Old Trafford, with the match starting a full six hours before Lancashire faced Durham in their Blast opener.

While no doubt a few fans watched both, such timings stretch the label of a “double-header” to the limit.