2017 County Championship Plate Stadium. Due to changes to the County Championship format (more detail of this below) four new teams were added to the competition, with Hampshire (winners) and Staffordshire (runners up) coming up due to reaching the final of the 2016 County Championship Shield, while Warwickshire and Cumbria were also promoted by virtue of their performances in the competition during the past two seasons. The changes also meant that there were no teams relegated into the division. Leicestershire and Hampshire won their respective groups to qualify for the Twickenham final, with Leicestershire being the more impressive with three easy victories. The first
County Championship sense because Middlesex started the match with a 15-point lead over Surrey. Breach of salary cap: Durham were subject to a 2.5 point penalty in the 2013 County Championship, as well as penalties in the limited over competitions, for breach of the salary cap in 2012. Despite this penalty, Durham still won the County Championship in 2013. Discipline: Leicestershire were fined 16 points in 2015 "in respect of five or more separate occasions when their players committed fixed penalty offences in a 12-month period." Leicestershire were fined 16 points in 2017 after a further five offences in the previous 12