(Cricket news) The Vitality Blast will start the 20th edition of the T20 competition with an opening-night rematch of last season’s final when champions Kent Spitfires play Somerset on May 25. The new Vitality Blast brand has been announced to mark the world’s longest-running professional domestic Twenty20 competition turning 20.

This year the Vitality Blast’s competitors will have seven weeks of action as the 18 First-Class teams bid to reach the already sold-out Finals Day at Edgbaston on July 16. The audience will get an early taste of one of the Vitality Blast’s most celebrated derbies with Lancashire Lightning hosting Yorkshire Vikings on the first Friday night of the competition.

Fan-friendly timeslots will also be a feature of the group-stage with 99 of the 126 matches to be played on a Thursday night, Friday night or at the weekend. There will also be 10 double-headers when the men’s Vitality Blast and women’s Charlotte Edwards Cup T20 matches are played back-to-back at the same venue.

The continuity will help ensure the Vitality Blast’s biggest overseas stars can be available for one of the busiest days in the county calendar, with superstar names such as Rashid Khan (Sussex Sharks), Carlos Brathwaite (Birmingham Bears), Marnus Labuschagne (Glamorgan), Shaheen Afridi (Middlesex), Qais Ahmed (Kent Spitfires) and Matthew Wade (Worcestershire Rapids) already padded up for the competition.

Darren Stevens is also set to turn out for Kent Spitfires again, after playing a crucial part in the Spitfires’ success last September, as one of five players who played in the very first T20 season in 2003. Current-day players Samit Patel (Notts Outlaws), Ravi Bopara (Sussex Sharks), Tim Bresnan (Birmingham Bears) and Tim Murtagh (Middlesex) were also involved in the first Twenty20 competition.

They will be featuring along with the rising stars such as Harry Brook (Yorkshire Vikings), Saqib Mahmood (Lancashire Lightning), Tom Banton (Somerset) and George Garton (Sussex Sharks) who are currently with the England Men’s squad for their five-match Twenty20 series in West Indies.

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