Warwickshire to play three One-Day Cup games at Rugby School

Warwickshire are to leave Edgbaston to play three of their four home One-Day Cup group games this summer 37 miles away, at Rugby School.

The Bears will host Glamorgan at Edgbaston on Thursday, 8 August.

However, the games against Surrey (2 August), Yorkshire (11 August) and Nottinghamshire (14 August) will all be played at the 3,000-capacity Rugby School ground.

It is the first time in almost a decade that the Bears will use an outground.

Rugby first staged a Bears fixture in 2013 when Warwickshire hosted a T20 game against Glamorgan, external - the year before they changed their T20 branding to Birmingham Bears.

The school then hosted two One-Day games in successive years - a washout against Kent in 2014 and then a One-Day Cup win over Sussex in 2015.

Warwickshire, who regularly used outgrounds for County Championship cricket in the past, have not taken any red-ball cricket away from Edgbaston since using Stratford in successive years, in 2004 and 2005.

In sporting terms, Rugby School is best known for being the place where William Webb Ellis, external is first reported to have picked up a ball and run with it, to create the game of rugby in 1823.

Former Bears skipper Michael Powell,, external who lifted the last-ever Benson and Hedges Cup with Warwickshire at Lord's in 2002, is now director of cricket at Rugby.

The One-Day Cup, won by Leicestershire in 2023, is scheduled to start on 24 July, when the Bears face a trip to face Essex at Chelmsford.

The group stage ends on 14 August, followed by the knockout stages on the 16 and 18 of August - but the Trent Bridge final is not until Sunday, 22 September.

The T20 Blast has an even longer gap between group stages and the knockout games - from 19 July, when the group games end, to 3-6 September for the quarter-finals, followed by Finals Day at Edgbaston on Saturday, 14 September.