Quarantine Cup fixtures revealed, Kent and Sussex to get tournament underway

The clash between Kent spinner Imran Qayyum and Sussex seamer Tymal Mills will be the first of 25 group stage matches, with a game every weekday evening at 7pm, as well as two per weekend day – at 2pm and 5pm

The Cricketer’s Quarantine Cup will get underway with a derby between Kent and Sussex on April 12.

The tournament will begin on Easter Sunday, when the County Championship season was meant to commence. Cricket in England and Wales is on the backburner, with many sides struggling to cope financially from the fallout to the Covid-19 crisis, and there is every chance that the first-class County Championship season will not take place for the first time since 1945.

The PS4 clash between Kent spinner Imran Qayyum and Sussex seamer Tymal Mills will be the first of 25 group stage matches, with a game every weekday evening at 7pm, as well as two per weekend day – at 2pm and 5pm.

Every fixture will be streamed via The Cricketer’s YouTube channel, with the two semi-finals and final taking place on May 7, May 9 and May 12.

Mills and Qayyum are two of eleven cricketers, all first-team professionals – four of whom with England squad experience, who will face off in the four-week competition to determine who claims the first domestic silverware of 2020.#

Leicestershire will face Glamorgan, before Mills does battle with Surrey and England’s Sophia Dunkley on the first of four double-header afternoons on April 18, with Northamptonshire, Warwickshire, Hampshire and Gloucestershire all involved 24 hours later.

Other standout ties include Kent’s local affair with Surrey and Gloucestershire’s game against Nottinghamshire. George Hankins and Tom Moores, the representatives for each of those two sides, went to school together.

The counties have been split into two groups – one of five, another of six, with games all five overs per side.

The round-robin phase ends on May 7, when Glamorgan’s Roman Walker takes on Sussex.

BBC Test Match Special trio Henry Moeran, Daniel Norcross and Alison Mitchell will provide commentary, along with Australian pair Adam Collins and Mel Farrell, internet radio channel Guerilla Cricket and viral father-daughter duo Mark and Isabelle Church.

The Quarantine Cup fixture wallchart can be downloaded from the tournament's homepage