GLOUCESTERSHIRE will discover today (Thursday) who they will be facing in the revised 2017 county cricket season when the new programme for competitions takes place.

The England and Wales Cricket Board are revising the schedule so that there is less County Championship cricket, a change of numbers in the two-division structure, a more attractive summer holidays time slot for the T20 Blast and a Lord's one-day knockout final in July rather than in September.

The aim of the changes is to put an end to players having to chop and change between the longer four-day red ball format to the one-dayers and, thus, make the domestic game more attractive to fans in the future.

Gloucestershire head coach Richard Dawson and his management team have been working hard at re-signing out-of-contract players and bringing in new blood since the end of the 2016 campaign.

And, as the players get down to basic winter fitness sessions, Dawson will have to plan his new season without a couple of stalwarts as New Zealander Hamish Marshall has returned home and outstanding batsman Michael Klinger has indicated he may be back next summer but only to play in the one day competitions rather than a full county season.

The NatWest T20 Blast fixtures will be released at 6pm tonight, while the rest will be announced to the public at midnight.

Dawson updated matters over the past few months saying: “A lot of the lads have renewed contracts which was vitally important for us to maintain a bit of stability in the squad and to keep on developing.

“You certainly don’t want to be re-building squads every winter. It certainly makes it hard to develop team spirit and to develop a winning team.

“So it has been crucial that we have tied lads down to new contracts.”