2026 County Championship standouts
With the season over 🥲 here’s my top performers from across the County Champs (weighted a bit towards Div 1). Who would you take away or add?
Batters
Joe Clarke – Obvious first mention after a stellar season. Top run-scorer in the country (1,288) including centuries. 94, 82 and 150 in three knocks against the champions. Doubt he will ever play for England but has to be mentioned.
Sam Hain – 1,048 runs at 75 and Warwickshire’s best batter in the title run. 142 in the final match, again coming in after a top order collapse.
Dan Lawrence - Earned an England call up with 982 runs at 65 with tons. Double century and then a century in the same match against a sorry Hampshire side. Step 1) Move to the Oval. Step 2) Score heaps of runs. Step 3) England call up.
Tom Abell - makes it onto the list with a triple century in the final game and ended just one run short of topping the Div One run charts. How has he never played for England?
Emilio Gay - four tons in seven games before England took him.
Ricardo Vasconcelos - led Div Two with 1,159 runs and six hundreds. Been doing it for years and just couldn’t get over the line ahead of Kent 😉
Ben McKinney - what a talent. Made 244 against Gloucestershire on his way to 1044 runs at 52.
Beddingham - wow this fella loves the county champs. Another 1000+ run season at 73.
All-rounders
Craig Overton – Will keep this short: player of the season, 53 wickets at 19 plus 734 runs with tons. As a neutral gutted Somerset couldnt get over the line for their first-ever title. (Before this year he’d only made one first-class ton and never reached 50 wickets)
George Hill – 48 wickets at 18 and 748 runs, topping Yorkshire’s team for both runs and wickets.
Bowlers
Ethan Bamber – 69 wickets at 19, ridiculous season and most in the country. Closed out the title run in with three straight five-fors. Will be interesting to see if he gets an England shot given his style.
Olly Stone – 50 wickets at 19 with five five-fors. On fire after the August restart took 25 wickets in four games.
Liam Patterson-White – Best spinner with 42 wickets, plus 474 runs, and could well be in-line for the Bangladesh tour this winter. Would love to see him given a go!
Matthew Potts - still young and plenty of time to get back in the England fold. Another 60 wickets at 18 and will be interesting to see how to goes in Div 1 next summer.
Shout out for a couple of elder statesmen…
James Anderson - just reminding everyone he averaged 17 at 44 years old. Another 50 poles onto the pile.
Kyle Abbot - if I told you he took 64 wickets averaging 16, where would you think his team came? Safe to say he carried a poor Hants bowling attack and has signed an extension through to next year.
Keepers
James Bracey - five tons, 1000+ runs and averaging 44. Could be interesting if Smith has a poor winter.