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The 2026 season is within a month of starting and the countdown has begun to the first matches in week commencing 20th April.

Edgerton & Dalton and Walkers Arms will play in the Premiership this season after both were promoted from their respective Conferences. Both have away games in the first round of fixtures. To make way for them, Yorkshire Medics will play in the Stallard Conference and Easypave CC in the Bottomley Conference.

We also welcome back Broad Oak Royals to the League and wish them luck for the coming season.

The full fixture list is now live on the website.

Fingers crossed for a dry few weeks so that the season can get underway as planned.

Twenty20 cricket is not a new phenomenon. The Huddersfield Evening Cricket League was founded in 1937, just before the outbreak of the Second World War, and its structure is remarkably similar to the “new” format that has taken the world of cricket by storm.

The League was established with a very simple goal. To provide competitive cricket for players who either did not have time for weekend cricket or did not consider themselves good enough. With a couple of minor changes, this is how the League runs to this day. Most players playing in any other competitive leagues are not eligible to play in the Evening League.

 

All matches start at 6.30pm on weekday evenings with the season running from late April to early August. Matches vary in length depending on the evening weather and can be as little as 10 eight ball overs, up to a maximum of 15 eight ball overs. The number of balls in the over means that there is less time wasted in changing ends.

 

The League is split into three sections and currently provides “friendly” competition for 18 teams. There are also two knockout competitions, the Emmerson Cup and the Priestley Cup, and an end of season playoff, the Allen Priest Trophy. The latter sees two semi finals and one final, played out on the same day in mid September - what does this remind you of? Even we, however, have succumbed to new fashions as, since the start of the 2010 season, all matches have been played with an orange ball.

 

Participating teams vary from works teams, to pub teams, to old boy’s teams. If you have a group of players that want to play on a competitive basis, the Evening League is ideal.

 

The Huddersfield Evening Cricket League has stood the test of time – long may it continue.