The 2018 Vitality Blast was the 2018 season of the

t20 Blast The T20 Blast, currently named the Vitality Blast for sponsorship reasons, is a professional Twenty20 cricket competition for English and Welsh first-class counties. The competition was established by the England and Wales Cricket Board (E ...

, a professional

Twenty20 cricket Twenty20 (T20) is a shortened game format of cricket. At the professional level, it was introduced by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) in 2003 for the inter-county competition. In a Twenty20 game, the two teams have a single inning ...

league in England and Wales. It was the first season in which the domestic T20 competition, ran by the ECB, has been branded as the Vitality Blast due to a new sponsorship deal. The league consisted of the 18 first-class county teams divided into two divisions of nine teams each with fixtures played between July and September. The final day took place at

Edgbaston Cricket Ground Edgbaston Cricket Ground, also known as the County Ground or Edgbaston Stadium, is a cricket ground in the Edgbaston area of Birmingham, England. It is home to Warwickshire County Cricket Club and its T20 team Birmingham Bears. Edgbaston has ...

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...

on 15 September 2018.

Nottinghamshire Outlaws Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club is one of eighteen first-class cricket, first-class county cricket, county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the Historic counties of England, historic county ...

were the champions going into the tournament having beaten the Birmingham Bears by 22 runs in the 2017 final.

Competition format

The 18 first-class

county cricket Inter-county cricket matches are known to have been played since the early 18th century, involving teams that are representative of the historic counties of England and Wales. Since the late 19th century, there have been two county championship ...

clubs are taking part in the competition. Teams are initially split into two divisions on a geographical basis (North and South) for the group stage of the competition, each group having nine teams. During the group stage, which ran from July until the middle of August, each county played 14 matches, playing six of the other sides in their group twice, once home and once away, and the other two teams once. The winners of each match received two points for a win, with one point awarded in the case of a tie or if a match was abandoned. Teams are ranked within their groups by total points, then

net run rate Net run rate (NRR) is a statistical method used in analysing teamwork and/or performance in cricket. It is the most commonly used method of ranking teams with equal points in limited overs league competitions, similar to goal difference in foo ...

. At the end of the group stage, the top four teams from each group entered the knockout stage of the competition.

Competition format

Teams

League stage

North Division

South Division

Knockout stage

Quarter-finals

Semi-finals

Final

Statistics

Most runs

Most wickets

References