Twenty teams were organised into four zonal groups in its original format with the games played at the start of the season in May. The (then) seventeen first-class counties were joined by three other teams, Minor Counties (North), Minor Counties (South) and
Cambridge University who alternated with the
University of Oxford. Each team played the others in the group, the winners of each game awarded three points plus, in its first year, a bonus point for bowling their opponents out. The first two teams in each group went on to contest a quarter-final knock-out stage. Groups were set up to create 'derby' games. in 1975, the Oxford and Cambridge university sides combined to form an
Oxford & Cambridge team which competed in every season thereafter. In 1976 the groupings were reorganised to remove the geographical element and the Minor Counties were divided into East and West instead of North and South. Scotland entered the competition in 1980 and the Minor Counties were reduced to one combined team. Durham joined the competition in 1992, having become a first-class county; Ireland joined in 1994 and the competition was streamlined to a straight knock-out cup.
Mike Atherton's
Combined Universities side almost reached the semi-finals in 1989, running Somerset close in the quarter-final thanks to a century from another future
England captain,
Nasser Hussain. Ireland defeated Middlesex eight years later. The final was played at
Lord's, initially in mid-July, but latterly in late June.
Viv Richards of Somerset made the highest score in a final, an unbeaten 132.
Ken Higgs of Leicestershire took a hat-trick (
Alan Butcher,
Pat Pocock and
Arnold Long) against Surrey in the final of 1974, but still ended on the losing side. Other notable performances in its later days include
Mark Alleyne's century for Gloucestershire in 1999, 112 from
Aravinda de Silva as Kent lost in 1995, and
Ben Hollioake's 115-ball 98 for Surrey in 1997. Last-ball or extremely close finishes in the final occurred in 1983 when
Middlesex beat
Essex, 1986 when
Middlesex beat
Kent, 1987 when
Yorkshire beat
Northamptonshire, 1989 when
Nottinghamshire beat
Essex, and in 1993 when
Derbyshire beat
Lancashire. In the 1989 final,
Eddie Hemmings hit the last ball for a boundary to seal an unlikely victory. The highest total ever recorded in the group matches was the 388 scored by Essex against Scotland in 1992.
Graham Gooch scored 127 as Scotland lost by 272 runs. In another tie in 1982 Gooch also recorded the highest individual score in the competition, 198 not out. At the
Worcestershire v Somerset, 1979 B&H Cup group game at
Worcester on 24 May 1979, the
Somerset captain
Brian Rose declared after one over with the score at 1 for 0.
Worcestershire scored the required 2 runs in 10 balls. The declaration was done to protect Somerset's run-rate so they could qualify for the next round. After a special
TCCB vote, Somerset were ejected from the competition for bringing the game into disrepute. ==Abolition==