By Staff
July 16 2026

Fifty-over cricket is back on Tuesday and Durham start at Derby - with Ben Stokes set to play, weeks after calling time on England. Here is how the One Day Cup works this year, where Durham are playing, and what a side sitting top of Division Two actually wants out of it.

Fifty-over cricket returns on Tuesday, Durham get going at Derby, and there is a name on the teamsheet that nobody had pencilled in a month ago. Ben Stokes, weeks after calling time on his England career, is set to play in Durham's One Day Cup opener - his first one-day game for the county in years.

Ryan Campbell has been careful about how he frames it. "Of course, we're always going to be mindful of loads - he's played a lot of cricket, so we've got to look after him - but at this stage, he's back, and we're excited to have him back," the head coach said. Stokes is expected to be around for the rest of the Cup and the Championship run-in, fitness permitting, which is a sentence that comes with its own small print. Nobody at Durham will be rushing him.

How it works

All 18 first-class counties, split into two groups of nine. Everyone plays everyone else in their group once, which is where the eight games come from. Durham are in Group B with Derbyshire, Essex, Glamorgan, Hampshire, Middlesex, Sussex, Worcestershire and Yorkshire. Eight sides reach the quarter-finals on 14 August, so a top-four finish is the target. Semi-finals follow two days later, and then a proper oddity: the final is not until 20 September, at Trent Bridge. Win a semi and you sit on it for five weeks.

Durham's eight

• Tue 21 July - Derbyshire (a), Derby
• Fri 24 July - Sussex (h), Riverside
• Wed 29 July - Glamorgan (h), Riverside
• Fri 31 July - Yorkshire (a), York
• Sun 2 August - Hampshire (a), Utilita Bowl
• Fri 7 August - Middlesex (h), South Northumberland
• Sun 9 August - Essex (h), Darlington
• Tue 11 August - Worcestershire (a), New Road

Two of those come away from Chester-le-Street. Middlesex goes to South Northumberland at Gosforth, and the Essex game heads to The Feethams Ground in Darlington - a fixture first pencilled in for 2020 before covid put a line through it. "Out ground cricket is always something a little different to playing at HQ," said chief executive Tim Bostock, "and we look forward to visiting Darlington later in the summer and hopefully putting on a good show for our members and spectators." There is a members bus running, and tickets already bought still stand.

The Hundred question

The Cup shares the calendar with The Hundred, and that is the thing that shapes it. Counties lose their Hundred-contracted players for the duration, squads thin out, and the fringe and the academy get a proper run instead of second XI friendlies. Plenty of people think that makes it a lesser competition. Others reckon eight games of real 50-over cricket is how young players actually learn, and Durham have had enough lads come through that way to see the point.

The backdrop is the best it has been in a while. Durham are top of Division Two and unbeaten, and promotion is the prize that actually matters this summer - which is worth remembering when the team sheets start looking thin in August. There is history in this group, too. Glamorgan, at the Riverside on 29 July, are the side that beat Durham in the 2021 final. Worcestershire, who Durham finish against at New Road, are the holders. Durham won this competition in 2014, the first year it was played, and it is not a trophy anyone here would turn their nose up at. Derby on Tuesday will tell you plenty.