Royal London One Day Cup

The Royal London One Day Cup is an exciting county cricket tournament limited to fifty-overs, and is open to sides from both England and Wales. This tournament was previously known as the ECB 40, but replaced that particular event in 2014. The number of innings were increased from 40 to 50 to bring the competition in line with One Day Internationals, and teams from Scotland and the Netherlands are also now not permitted to take part. Yorkshire have been put in as the 13/2 favourites to win the 2015 renewal of the Royal London One Day Cup by the odds compilers at Betfair, and for the purposes of this one day format, the team are known as the Yorkshire Vikings. As the most successful team in the history of English cricket, Yorkshire are never far away when it comes to winning the county cricket tournaments, and this group of players are particularly talented at one day cricket.

A total of eighteen teams take part in the Royal London One Day Cup, with the sides split into two groups of nine at the start of the competition. The groups are determined by a random draw, and those teams who fill the top four positions in each group then progress to the quarter final stage. From there, a straight knockout event begins, with the champion crowned at Lords around the end of September. The very first match of the 2015 One Day Cup will see the Northamptonshire Steelbacks take on defending champions Durham at The County Ground on July 25th. Jon Lewis' men took their second One-Day Cup last year, and are clearly a very formidable outfit when it comes to this format. Bookmaker Betfair have priced Durham up at odds of 9/1 to make a successful defence of the crown they won in 2014. Under the guidance of captain Paul Collingwood, Durham have also tasted plenty of success in terms of the County Championship in recent years, having taken the title in 2008, 2009 and most recently in 2013.

Another side well fancied for 2015 Royal London One Day Cup are Nottinghamshire, with the Outlaws currently on offer at odds of 15/2. Although this side haven't tasted any major success since 2010, Chris Read's side do now appear to be on the verge of winning major honours once again, and can definitely build on their positive results of last season. It will be surprising if Nottinghamshire aren't one of the teams to fill the top four spots in Group B.

With a total of 79 matches set to take place throughout the duration of the Royal London One Day Cup, cricket fans are definitely in for an exciting summer of high class county action. This tournament has been around in one form or another since 1969, but the recent changes to the format can only be considered a positive. The new fifty over games make for more rounded matches, and obviously slightly longer encounters.Those punters looking for all the latest betting odds on this key cricket competition should visit betfair.com.