So endeth the driest and hottest summer on record and, whilst hillsides blazed and crops wilted, cricket was a beneficiary. I don’t think it is a coincidence that, with fewer rain interventions, across both County Championship divisions, the number of positive results (i.e wins rather than draws) soared from 64 to 87. And this ignores the great drought of August, when red-ball cricket took an enforced break.
Numerous former under-19 internationals or young Lions made an impact on the domestic game. Durham’s Ben McKinney was one of the few batsmen to top a thousand Championship runs and the teenage Thomas Rew emerged from the shadow of his only slightly older brother James in the Somerset engine room and behind the stumps. 21 year-old Henry Crocombe claimed a hat-trick in successive matches for Sussex and Isleworth-born Middlesex seamer Naavya Sharma took more One Day Cup wickets than anyone else in his debut season, including 3-37 in the final.
England legends James Anderson and Ben Stokes proved there was plenty left in the tank for Lancashire and Durham, respectively. Unfortunately, the former’s fifty Championship wickets failed to lift the Red Roses to promotion while Durham’s formidable bowling unit made them Division Two’s outstanding unit. Last year’s basement county Kent completed a remarkable recovery to join them in next year’s top tier. Barring any shock U-turn on a points deduction, Leicestershire are heading back down but, to many people’s surprise (including mine), Glamorgan looked solid and it was Hampshire who made the drop courtesy of dreadful batting. However, the Welsh side will now have to replace veteran South African stalwarts Chris Cooke and Colin Ingram, which won’t be easy.
In determining my County Team of 2026, as usual I considered consistency across each format, especially the Championship and Blast given that many of the big boys spent their school holidays playing The Hundred. I apologise for excluding the women’s game, but I confess it is not my area of expertise.
Openers
Keaton Jennings and Jake Libby were not their usual reliable selves in the four-day competition but piled on the runs in the fifty-over stuff. The Worcestershire opener even achieved a rare four successive centuries. Asa Tribe scored almost a thousand runs for Glamorgan and Tom Lammonby has helped Somerset make some excellent starts, bolstered in September by the form of Josh Thomas. Perhaps the top performer was Northamptonshire’s Ricardo Vasconcelos. The Portuguese-South African import enjoyed his best season in England, making 1,159 Championship runs and 439 in the Blast.
Middle Order
Another
Saffer with a European qualification (Italy), Wayne Madsen bowed out from
Derbyshire aged 42 with a century in his penultimate match, while Somerset’s
Tom Abell finished the season with a superlative triple-hundred, although it
didn’t result in that elusive maiden Championship crown. Instead, it was Sam
Hain’s September form that helped propel Warwickshire to that title. His final
batting average was a tad short of 75. Surrey endured a strangely torrid
summer, but Dan Lawrence bashed six centuries in only ten outings. Jake Lehmann
was a rare jewel in Hampshire’s bag of glass, Joe Weatherley topped the Blast
runs table and Durham’s David Bedingham often looked too good for the second division.
The Championship’s top runs scorer was Joe Clarke, whose efforts kept
Nottinghamshire in the frame to retain the pennant almost to the end. His
skipper Jack Haynes combined with him to make the Notts middle-order one of the
strongest around.
All
Rounders
James Sales was an unusual all-rounder in that he seemed to shine for Northants with the bat in the Championship and ball in the Blast, in which he aggregated twenty wickets. A regular in my Teams of the Year, Ryan Higgins was not his usual self in terms of runs, and the same could be said for Lewis Gregory whose bowling also came in under the radar, taking 487 at under twenty apiece. When you think of Yorkshire batting, Bairstow, Root, Brook and Lyth spring easily to mind but George Hill must be one of the best all-rounders on the red-ball circuit thanks also to his mean seamers. Essex struggled at times, but no blame could be attributed to Matt Critchley whose batting seems to be eclipsing his spin bowling as he gets older. Martin Andersson sounds like he hails from Copenhagen rather than Reading but he was the stand-out performer for Derbyshire, clocking up 1,740 runs and forty wickets across all three tournaments.
Wicket-Keeper
Behind the stumps, Ben Brown, John Simpson and James Rew claimed more Championship victims than anyone else. Brooke Guest was a consistent gloveman for Derbyshire and notched his maiden T20 century. However, he made a pair against Gloucestershire, for whom James Bracey carved two centuries in the same match. The county suffered ten defeats to prop up Division Two but the ‘keeper passed the 1,000-run mark for the third year running. Not many can say that these days. Kyle Verreynne didn’t play throughout the summer but, in addition to catches and stumpings, he was the One Day Cup’s highest scorer. Leicestershire’s Ben Cox rarely reels off big scores but is the county’s Mr Reliable. This year, he averaged 42 in the four-dayers and had a List A strike rate in three figures.
Bowlers
Jamie Overton continues to pick up England caps, ostensibly because of his superior batting. However, it is his twin brother Craig whose three first-class centuries for Somerset this summer which, allied to 53 wickets, earned him the competition’s MVP award. Unusual for a big bloke, he is a pretty prolific slip fielder, too. I have watched him since he and Jamie were teenagers and nobody deserves the title more than ‘Coverton’. The evergreen Kyle Abbott may be 39 but he remains the star County Championship bowler. In 2026, his victims totalled an unassailable 64, at a paltry average of just 16.
Hasan Ali and Sean Currie were the top wicket-takers in the Blast, but played only minor roles in other competitions. Olly Stone and Oliver Hannon-Dalby delivered again for Warwickshire (but for some reason the latter was loaned to neighbours Worcestershire early on) and Bens Aitchison (Derby) and Sanderson (Northants) each clocked almost eighty wickets in total. Matthew Potts was similarly successful for Durham but Kent’s Matt Milnes out-bowled the lot with exactly eighty victims from all three formats. My final pick is Ethan Bamber. A fellow Exeter University alumnus, he was born into showbiz but he never topped the bill at Middlesex. However, now at Warwickshire, it was his pace bowling which dominated the stage as his new county stormed to the Championship.
Tio summarise, here is my overall County XI of 2026;-
Vasconcelos (Nor), Lammonby (Som), Hain (War), Clarke (Not), Bedingham (Dur), Critchley (Ess), Andersson (Der), Cox (Lei +), C. Overton (Som), E Bamber (War), Milnes (Ken)
On
the reserve list: Haynes (Not), Hill (Yor), Bracey (Glo +), Potts (Dur)
