County Cricket: My Team of 2025

While I must admit that the highlight of the domestic cricket season was the sterling five-Test contest between England and India, the county season threw up a few welcome surprises. Surrey’s stellar squad failed to win anything, last season’s strugglers Nottinghamshire pipped them for the title at the death, my Somerset boys converted white-ball talent into Blast success and Worcestershire combined Championship relegation with victory in the One-Day Cup. Oh, and Jimmy Anderson tried – with mixed results – to reinvent himself as a supreme Twenty20 exponent. The IPL franchises were unimpressed but Lancashire were more obliging.

Now for my annual review of the stand-out performers on the county circuit. The Hundred doesn’t count, obviously. In arriving at my final Eleven, I looked at consistency across formats while prioritising the Championship ahead of the Blast and then the 50-over competition which was bereft of the one-day aces who preferred to spend their August earning larger salaries in The Hundred. 

Openers 

Ben Compton’s 1,386 runs at an average of 60 were the rare jewels in Kent’s miserable summer. Talking of which, Derbyshire’s Caleb Jewell was the top scorer across all three county competitions. He made only one of my Teams of the Week but accumulated his runs efficiently and consistemtly. Dom Sibley and Haseeb Hameed may have been discarded by Engand selectors years ago, but they were the outstanding openers in Division One. Sibley reached a triple-century out of a massive 820-9 against Durham but in the same match, Alex Lees scored a ton in each innings. Lees just failed to notch 1,000 runs in the four-dayers but had a fruitful T20 campaign. Tom Banton astonished everyone by cracking 371 against Worcestershire at the start of April but couldn’t maintain that throughout Somerset’s season.

Middle Order

Old favourites Wayne Madsen and Colin Ingram showed no signs of slowing down. The 41-year-old Derbyshire stalwart averaged 57 in Division Two adding 431 in the short stuff. Ingram’s Glamorgan colleague Kiran Carlson had an excellent 2024 but was even better this year, especially as the county achieved its first promotion in yonks. Northamptonshire had a rotten time, but nobody scored more Championship runs than their 27-year-old left-hander, Saif Zaib. Max Holden had a few golden moments for Middlesex, James Coles of Sussex made plenty of runs, as did Essex’s Tom Westley, while Hampshire’s Toby Albert topped the batting charts in the Blast, and his counterpart Nick Gubbins did the same in the One-Day Cup. However, my next member of the team of 2025 is Jack Haynes of county champs Notts. He struck four first-class hundreds and boasted a healthy strike rate in one-day cricket, too. 

All Rounders 

Ryan Higgins and Liam Dawson weren’t quite up to their traditional levels but there was no shortage of quality batting all-rounders on the circuit. Notitnghamshire’s Lyndon James included a double-century in his 2025 CV while Tom Lammonby of Somerset saved his best performances for when they really mattered. Lewis Gregory continued to deserve Somerset fans’ adoration, particularly when he whacked the winning six in the Blast final. Ben Kellaway and Rehan Ahmed added considerable runs to their customary spin bowling, and young Ethan Brookes of Worcestershire looked a useful player in both red and white-ball formats. However, my pick is Warwickshire’s Ed Barnard, mostly for his runs in a year when Hain, Davies and Yates didn’t often deliver.

Wicket-Keeper 

Lewis McManus claimed more victims (20 than anyone else in the Blast, while Garth Roderick topped the charts in the Championship, but their batting wasn’t quite up to scratch. James Rew of Somerset looked back to his best and even enjoyed some useful middle-order partnerships with younger brother Thomas. However, like last year, the wicketkeeping slot comes down to a fight between James Bracey (Gloucs) and John Simpson (Sussex). A third of Bracey’s runs came in the One-Day Cup but the South Coast skipper contributed everywhere, excelling in first-class cricket, both with gloves and willow, averaging 60 in his side’s push for fourth place.

Bowlers

Five men took at least fifty Championship wickets, and three of them make my XI. It wasn’t an easy decision. Ben Sanderson (Northants) and Riley Meredith (Somerset) were the most prolific in T20, Ben Allison (Worcs) in the One-Day Cup, while Ben Green (Leics) picked them up in all three competitions.

The evergreen Kyle Abbott ended the Championship season with almost identical figures to those of 2024 and is an automatic selection. Ben Raine’s seam bowling bailed Durham out of a few holes, also contributing useful lower-order runs. George Hill (Yorks) and Luis Reece (Derbys) achieved the half-century with eye-catching sub-20 averages. Spin wasn’t really to the fore this summer. Even Simon Harmer struggled so, for a second consecutive year, I am delighted to induct Somerset’s Jack Leach into the 2025 Eleven. He rarely featured in limited-overs but in the long-form the ex-England left-armer worked hard all season. Surprise bowler of the season must be Tom Taylor. Before April was out, Worcestershire looked doomed, but the 30-year-old plugged away throughout. Nobody took more wickets – 78 in total, including fifteen in the Blast. 

Like the whole country, players and fans alike, I have no idea what the hell is happening to county cricket next year. However, here is my hotly-awaited County XI of 2025;- 

Jewell (Der), Lees (Dur), Haynes (Not), Carlson (Gla), Barnard (War), Zaib (Nor), Simpson (Sus +), Abbott (Ham), Raine (Dur), Taylor (Wor), Leach (Som)

Just missed out: Brookes (Wor), Madsen (Der), Bracey (Glo +), B Green (Lei)

County Cricket: Notts and Leicester extend their leads

Unlike last week, runs were harder to come by, and wicketkeepers struggled with the bat. Somerset and Glamorgan each notched their third wins in succession, while Division One is looking very tight. 

Following their reverse against Durham, Nottinghamshire bounced back with a 163-run triumph against Yorkshire, their first at Headingley for fourteen years. They didn’t have it all their own way. New Lions recruit George Hill took 5-40 for the home side, before Mohammad Abbas swung things back with a commanding 6-45. Joe Clarke’s second half-century of the match helped Notts set a difficult target of 464 which they rarely looked like approaching. Five wickets from Dillon Pennington and six catches by ‘keeper Kyle Verryenne ended the resistance to deliver nineteen points to the leaders. 

Surrey remain in second place despite failing to beat Essex at The Oval. In fact, rain on the final day may well have saved them from defeat. Centuries by Paul Walter and Charlie Allison had left Surrey chasing over 400 to win on the last day. Michael Pepper stumped both openers off Harmer’s spin, then Jamie Porter claimed five more wickets, including that of Sam Curran, whose return from the IPL yielded two 70+ scores. Another England white-ball specialist, Jason Roy, bagged a sorry pair but the match ended with three Surrey wickets intact. 

Sussex are third, defeating Hampshire by nine wickets inside three days. The only batting partnership of note was the 173 shared by Sussex skipper John Simpson (106 not out) and Fynn Hudson-Prentice, while the off-spinner Jack Carson inflicted much of the damage to Hampshire’s second innings, ending on 5-26. Bowlers were also on top at Durham, where Somerset’s third win on the bounce came against the odds. Mitchell Killeen’s 5-38 on debut placed Durham on the driving seat then, although the visiting seamers restored some balance, Somerset still faced a tricky chase of 265. Thanks to Tom Lammonby and Tom Abell, they succeeded, making runs look almost easy. 

Despite this winning streak, Somerset are only fifth, one point adrift of Warwickshire, whose bid to go second was wrecked by the Worcester rain. Sam Hain found some form at last, twice passing eighty, but it was a welcome return, too, for Chris Woakes and Chris Rushworth. The latter claimed 4-37 and 3-30 as Warwickshire pushed to bowl out their neighbours. However, Waite, Brooks and Taylor proved stubborn, and the weather ended proceedings with Worcestershire on 181-8. 

Leicestershire maintained their unexpected grip on Division Two, thumping Lancashire by an innings and reaching the halfway stage fifty-one points clear at the summit. Test spinner Rehan Ahmed is still only twenty and is now making his mark in the county game as an all-rounder. Batting at three, he compiled an assured 136, putting on 256 with Lewis Hill, then dismissed the Lancs tail-enders to polish off the second innings. Keaton Jennings’ 112 was his side’s only score above 40 and not even Marcus Harris could lift them. 

They are not the basement county, though. Kent’s appalling run has dropped them to an ignominious eighth after a crushing loss to Derbyshire. At least Ben Compton could hold his head high, adding 205 runs to his season’s tally, but Derbyshire’s total of 587-5 declared proved insurmountable. 41-year-old Wayne Madsen notched another ton, but star of the show was opener, Caleb Jewell. The Tasmanian left-hander struck a career-best 232 spanning almost nine hours. 

Like Somerset, Glamorgan made it three in a row, advancing to third in the table by taking Middlesex to the Cardiff cleaners. Sam Northeast and Kiran Carlson each achieved three figures before their attack took twenty wickets, something they rarely managed last year. No Kellaway this week, but left-arm spinner Matt Kuhnemann popped up from Australia to win the match with 6-53. 

At Northampton, another classy Aussie, Cameron Green, struck his third hundred in five matches for Gloucestershire in a more old-fashioned contest between bat and ball at Wantage Road. Northamptonshire, for whom Saif Zaib accumulated 215 runs, tended to dominate and were putting severe pressure on their visitors until rain took control on the fourth afternoon. With Bracey, Green and Hammond back in the pavilion, Gloucestershire would have been the most relieved. 

So that is it for the County Championship for four weeks. It hands over the spotlight to the Vitality Blast, in which anything can happen. No doubt some big overseas names will dip in and out with mixed results, while homegrown stars will shake things up. Champions Gloucestershire begin their defence at home to Kent while runners-up (grrr) Somerset face former nemesis county Surrey. 

Team of the Week:- Compton (Ken), Jewell (Der), Rehan Ahmed (Lei), Lammonby (Som), Hain (War), Saif Zaib (Nor), Verreynne (Not +), Carson (Sus), Mohammad Abbas (Not), Kuhnemann (Gla), Rushworth (War)