The 2008 Friends Provident Trophy was an English county cricket tournament, held between 20 April and 16 August 2008. The tournament was won by

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

Format

Unlike in 2007, the 18

English counties The counties of England are areas used for different purposes, which include administrative, geographical, cultural and political demarcation. The term "county" is defined in several ways and can apply to similar or the same areas used by each ...

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

and

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

were divided into four groups of five, based on geographical location. Each side played the other four teams home and away, with the top two sides from each group progressing to the quarter-final stage. A spokesman for the

England and Wales Cricket Board The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) is the Sports governing body, national governing body of cricket in England and Wales. It was formed on 1 January 1997 as a single governing body to combine the roles formerly fulfilled by the Test and ...

, which instigated the changes, explained that the changes "provides more local derbies and less travel for players". The recommendations of the ''Schofield Report''; an investigation into England's 5–0 Ashes defeat, were also cited as a cause for the changes.

Group stage

Midlands Division

North Division

South East Division

South/West Division

Knockout stage

Quarter finals

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Semi finals

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Final

References

External links

*
Competition overview
from CricketArchive
Competition overview
from

Cricinfo ESPN cricinfo (formerly known as Cricinfo or CricInfo) is a sports news website exclusively for the game of cricket. The site features news, articles, live coverage of cricket matches (including liveblogs and scorecards), and ''StatsGuru'', a d ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:2008 Friends Provident Trophy Friends Provident Trophy seasons Friends Provident Trophy, 2008