2016 Women's County Championship Explained

Administrator:	England and Wales Cricket Board
Cricket Format:	50 over
Tournament Format:	League system
Champions:	Kent
Participants:	37
Most Runs:	Kirstie White (337)
Most Wickets:	Samantha Betts (18)
Previous Year:	2015
Previous Tournament:	2015 Women's County Championship
Next Year:	2017
Next Tournament:	2017 Women's County Championship

The 2016 Women's County One-Day Championship was the 20th cricket Women's County Championship season. The Championship was won by Kent who recorded their seventh championship, setting a new record for the number of championships won. The runners-up were Sussex.

This was the last season in which Division 4 was contested. Following a reorganisation of the structure of the tournament, all the teams in Division 4 were promoted to an expanded Division 3 in 2017. In early 2016, Ireland team withdrew from the competition, causing fixtures to be rescheduled and Division 2 with one fewer team.^[1]

Competition format

The championship worked on a points system, the winner being the team with most average points of completed games in the first division. The points are awarded as follows:^[2]

Win: 10 points + bonus points.
Tie

5 points + bonus points.
Loss: Bonus points.
Abandoned or cancelled: Match not counted to average.

Bonus points are collected for batting and bowling. The bonus points for each match are retained if the match is completed.

• Batting

1.50 runs per over (RPO) or more: 1 point

2 RPO or more: 2 points

3 RPO or more: 3 points

4 RPO or more: 4 points

• Bowling

3-4 wickets taken: 1 point

5-6 wickets taken: 2 points

7-8 wickets taken: 3 points

9-10 wickets taken: 4 points

Teams

The 2016 Championship was divided into four divisions: Division One with nine teams, Division Two with eight teams due to Ireland withdrawing, Division Three with nine teams, and Division Four with eleven teams across two groups.

Teams in each group played each other once.

Division One	Berkshire	Kent	Middlesex	Somerset	Staffordshire	Surrey	Sussex	Warwickshire	Yorkshire
Division Two	Devon	Essex	Hampshire	Lancashire	Leicestershire and Rutland	Nottinghamshire	Wales	Worcestershire
Division Three	Cheshire	Derbyshire	Durham	Gloucestershire	Netherlands	Norfolk	Northamptonshire	Oxfordshire	Scotland
Division Four North & East	Cambridgeshire	Cumbria	Hertfordshire	Lincolnshire	Northumberland	Suffolk
Division Four South & West	Buckinghamshire	Cornwall	Dorset	Shropshire	Wiltshire

Division One

Team
Kent (C)	8	7	1	0	0	31	32	0	133	16.63
Sussex	8	4	2	0	2	22	19	0	81	13.50
Warwickshire	8	4	2	0	2	18	22	0	80	13.33
Yorkshire	8	4	2	0	2	16	18	0	74	12.33
Berkshire	8	3	4	0	1	21	26	0	77	11.00
	8	4	3	0	1	19	17	0	76	10.86
Somerset (R)	8	2	5	0	1	11	18	0	49	7.00
Surrey (R)	8	1	7	0	0	21	22	0	53	6.63
Staffordshire (R)	8	1	4	0	3	11	9	0	30	6.00

— Source: ECB Women's County Championship^[3]

Division Two

Team
Lancashire (P)	7	4	1	0	2	15	20	0	75	15.00
Nottinghamshire (P)	7	5	1	0	1	20	18	0	88	14.67
	7	5	2	0	0	19	26	0	95	13.57
Devon	7	4	3	0	0	22	22	0	84	12.00
Wales	7	3	2	0	2	13	17	0	60	12.00
	7	2	4	0	1	16	16	0	52	8.67
Leicestershire and Rutland (R)	7	1	4	0	2	11	13	0	34	6.80
Essex (R)	7	0	7	0	0	15	17	0	32	4.57

— Source: ECB Women's County Championship^[4]

Division Three

Team
Derbyshire (P)	8	6	0	0	2	23	22	0	105	17.50
Durham	8	6	1	0	1	19	23	0	102	14.57
	8	5	1	0	2	17	20	0	87	14.50
	8	3	2	0	3	13	14	0	57	11.40
	8	3	4	0	1	20	23	0	73	10.43
Netherlands	8	3	4	0	1	22	20	0	72	10.29
Scotland	8	3	4	0	1	19	20	0	69	9.86
Cheshire	8	1	6	0	1	14	10	0	34	4.86
Norfolk	8	0	8	0	0	14	3	0	27	3.38

— Source: ECB Women's County Championship^[5]

Division Four

North & East

Team
Hertfordshire	5	4	0	0	1	13	16	0	69	17.25
Suffolk	5	3	1	0	1	10	15	0	55	13.75
Northumberland	5	2	2	0	1	14	14	0	48	12.00
Lincolnshire	5	2	2	0	1	11	10	0	41	10.25
Cumbria	5	1	2	0	2	8	10	0	28	9.33
Cambridgeshire	5	0	5	0	0	11	12	0	23	4.60

— Source: ECB Women's County Championship^[6]

South & West

Team
Shropshire	4	3	0	0	1	10	12	0	52	17.33
Cornwall	4	1	1	0	2	2	7	0	19	9.50
Dorset	4	1	2	0	1	7	9	0	26	8.67
Wiltshire	4	1	2	0	1	8	5	0	23	7.67
Buckinghamshire	4	1	2	0	1	6	6	0	22	7.33

— Source: ECB Women's County Championship^[7]

Statistics

Most runs

width=125	Player	width=125	Team	width=60	Matches	width=60	Innings	width=60	Runs	width=60	Average	width=60		width=60	100s	width=60	50s
Kirstie White	Surrey	8	8	337	48.14	98	0	3
Aylish Cranstone	Devon	7	7	327	54.50	134	1	1
Heather Knight	Berkshire	7	7	308	44.00	92	0	4
Tammy Beaumont	Kent	8	8	292	41.71	72	0	2
	Netherlands	8	7	275	39.28	104	1	2

Source: CricketArchive^[8]

Most wickets

width=125	Player	width=125	Team	width=60	Balls	width=60	Wickets	width=60	Average	width=60	BBI	width=60	5w
Samantha Betts	Hampshire	343	18	8.00	5/20	2
Megan Belt	Kent	290	16	7.93	5/8	1
Georgia Elwiss	Sussex	285	15	10.33	6/17	2
Tash Farrant	Kent	300	15	10.80	6/16	1
Charlotte Pape	Kent	223	14	7.07	3/9	0

Source: CricketArchive^[9]

Notes and References

1. https://crickether.com/2016/01/12/exclusive-ireland-cut-costly-county-cricket/ EXCLUSIVE: Ireland Cut Costly County Cricket
2. https://web.archive.org/web/20160606180957/http://www.ecb.co.uk/sites/default/files/royal_london_womens_one-day_championship_2016.pdf Royal London Women's County One-Day Championship
3. http://ecbwcountychampionship.play-cricket.com/website/websites/view_division?id=63215 Division 1 - 2016
4. http://ecbwcountychampionship.play-cricket.com/website/websites/view_division?id=63216 Division 2 - 2016
5. http://ecbwcountychampionship.play-cricket.com/website/websites/view_division?id=63217 Division 3 - 2016
6. http://ecbwcountychampionship.play-cricket.com/website/websites/view_division?id=63218 Division 4 - North & East - 2016
7. http://ecbwcountychampionship.play-cricket.com/website/websites/view_division?id=63219 Division 4 - South & West - 2016
8. Web site: Batting and Fielding in Royal London Women's One-Day Cup 2016 (Ordered by Runs) . CricketArchive . 20 March 2021.
9. Web site: Bowling in Royal London Women's One-Day Cup 2016 (Ordered by Wickets) . CricketArchive . 20 March 2021.