U.K. cricket's Minor Counties will change their name "after 124 years of competitive cricket spanning three centuries," according to the BBC. From '20, the "rejigged competition's many changes" will include becoming the National Counties Cricket Association. There will be "slightly less three-day cricket," but there will be automatic promotion and relegation within the current Western and Eastern Divisions. Minor Counties Cricket Association Chair Nick Archer said, "It will make it far more competitive. There'll be no hiding place. We'll have the best sides playing the best sides." If approved, it would mean a chance for every National Counties side to play against first-class opposition for the first time since Minor Counties sides "were excluded from English cricket's premier one-day competition" in '06. The changes were officially approved at a meeting in London on Monday with the England & Wales Cricket Board, which has also agreed to the name change, "which still needs to be officially rubber-stamped at the Minor Counties' next meeting" (BBC, 1/15).
