County Championship 2026 Round 14

Every time I turned the radio on this week, it seemed to be raining. So I don’t feel like I got a handle on what was going on in most of the games. The most exciting one seemed to be Yorkshire v Somerset – after a modest first innings of 212 from Yorkshire, Somerset top order were rolled over leaving them at 86-8, only to be saved by Craig Overton’s heroics, aided by Migael Pretorius, who dragged the innings almost to parity. Then in Yorkshire’s second innings the same thing happened: 54-6, followed by an impressive stand by Hill and Bess (former Somerset player) to leave Somerset chasing 287 to win. At which point the lower-order-heroics ran out, and Somerset were bowled out for 101. The star bowler for Yorkshire was Ben Cliff, who took eight wickets in the first innings and three in the second – this is only his 11th first class match.

Craig Overton seems to me to have a bit of the Ben Stokes about him – he can lead the bowling attack, he can bat to get his team out of trouble, and he is a natural leader even when he doesn’t officially have the captain’s armband. I wonder if England might come knocking now they have a Stokes-shaped hole that needs filling.

Next week is the last round, and the Championship is still up for grabs. Warwickshire have to be favourites, as the only one of the serious competitors not to have lost this week, but there’s still time for a last-minute twist.

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County Championship 2026 Round 13

The game I will remember most vividly from this week isn’t even a County Championship one, it was Surrey v Somerset women at the Oval on Saturday. We went in the afternoon and got there just as Surrey’s reply was starting. Somerset had made an impressive total of 295, and Surrey were behind the DLS target for most of the game. There was a good partnership between Kira Chathli and Phoebe Franklin for the 6th wicket which looked like it had won Surrey the game, but then a clatter of wickets left Surrey eight down needing just over a run a ball in the last five overs. The tailenders fought to keep up with the rate until Kalea Moore was injured and needed a runner with eight balls to go. The long wait for treatment and a runner ratcheted up the tension, until the ball was finally bowled and Moore was given LBW, the runner never having had to move. With nine down, needing seven runs off six balls and only one wicket remaining, Somerset looked favourites, but a wide followed by a mis-field and a boundary off the first ball of the final over swung the momentum right back in Surrey’s favour, and despite fervent appeals the last pair scrambled two singles off the next two balls and won the game with three balls and one wicket in hand.

It was a nerve-wracking game, and the two six-year-old Somerset fans I was with were devastated for five minutes, until some of the players came over and kindly signed autographs, and then Niamh Holland and Katie Jones gave them their playing shirts. To a six-year-old, that more than makes up for losing. Surrey will now go on to play in the semi-finals next week against Hampshire.

In the men’s championship, Durham have secured promotion and (with Kent’s defeat) the Division Two title, with two games still to play. Durham have looked a class above all season, particularly their fast bowlers – nothing like the hang-dog team of the end of last season, who seemed to have lost every game in their heads before they even got on the field. Somerset, Nottinghamshire and Warwickshire all won, keeping the competition at the top of Division One tight. None of those three are facing each other again this season, so it’ll be down to how much of a fight the other teams lower down the division put up.

I’m glad we’ve still got another two weeks to go – despite the weather feeling decidedly autumnal, I’m not ready for the cricket season to be over yet!

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County Championship 2026 Round 12

There were quite a few exciting matches this week. Surrey v Yorkshire was the one I kept switching over to – both teams seemed to be doing their best to lose it at different points, and the last hour or so, when wickets fell at just the same rate as the runs were knocked off, was nail-biting even for a neutral.

With three weeks to go, the tables are getting closer to their final shape. I can’t see Durham failing to be promoted now, while I’m pretty sure Hampshire will be going down to division 2. The title race looks to be between Somerset, Nottinghamshire and Warwickshire. And Gloucestershire managed to get their second win of the season, but sadly that didn’t get them off the bottom of division 2.

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County Championship 2026 Round 11

It rained a lot, and there was a Test match on at the same time, so I didn’t catch as much of this round of County Championship games as I would have liked. The only game that wasn’t drawn was in Chester le Street, where day 3 ended farcically with Durham having to play their spinners in the gloaming, therefore conceding enough runs that they would have to bat again – very briefly – to win, but Gloucestershire then announced they would only bowl seamers so everyone trouped off and came back the next day. On day 4 the teams seemed to be competing for who could take it the least seriously: Gloucestershire opened with a spinner, while Durham sent out their number 11, Potts, to face a single over and make the four runs needed for the win. Lots of people got annoyed, but personally I found it hilarious.

The other things I noticed were Surrey being saved only by the heroics of Ben Foakes; Middlesex declaring without facing a ball in an unsuccessful attempt to reach a result; and Joe Clarke being the first batter to 1000 runs in the season, while Matty Potts was the first to reach 50 wickets.

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County Championship 2026 Round 10

First class cricket is back! Of course the ECB scheduled it to clash with the first Test against Pakistan, but that was soon over so we could concentrate on the county championship; they also thoughtfully didn’t pick any Durham bowlers, so we had a pace attack containing four international seamers – poor Derbyshire. Both Durham and Somerset suffered by losing their leading wicket-taker to parental leave, but it didn’t seem to hamper either team.

There were a lot of low-scoring first innings, followed by higher second-innings scores – either the pitches were flattening out a lot, or most of the players took a while to remember how to play long-form cricket. Either way, it led to results across the board, the most exciting being Warwickshire against Sussex, which concluded with the ninth wicket falling with scores level, followed by two tense maiden overs before Chris Woakes managed to find the boundary and win the game for the Bears.

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County Championship 2026 Round 9

Only a week late, here’s the report on the ninth round of the county championship. My excuse is that it’s been too hot this week to be near enough a computer to type.

I enjoyed Ben Stokes making 95 in a rare appearance for Durham, and he also clearly enjoyed it too, enough to give up moonlighting for England to concentrate on playing proper cricket at Chester-Le-Street.

The background picture is the beautiful Normandy cricket club in Surrey, where I played (and won) my first game of the season a couple of weeks ago.

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County Championship 2026 Round 8

I got so caught up in the T20 World Cup that I almost forgot about this round of county championship games. I’m glad I didn’t, though, because Durham enjoyed a three-day win over Derbyshire (at one point it looked like it would be over in two days, but Durham let Derbyshire have a go at batting before unleashing Matty Potts on them to finish it off).

I also enjoyed listening to the Surrey v Hampshire game the previous week – it’s nice when the games are a bit more spread out so you can follow others, not just your favourite team.

Another observation, resulting from listening to lots of international T20s: the BBC county commentators, given four days to fill and without the pressure of the spotlight which international commentators are under, are endlessly entertaining. They manage the perfect balance of knowledge and joviality, banter without cruelty, and accurate description of the game with general chit-chat. We are so lucky to have this service.

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Women’s T20 World Cup 2026 – Wall Chart

Here’s a wall chart I made for the women’s world cup – it’s A2, so you can print it on 4 A4 pages, or I’ll probably get the printer in town to print it. Or print it on A4, it should still be just about legible. Then circle the winner of each game and tally up the wins in the tables at the bottom.

County Championship 2026 Round 7

I finally made it to watch Durham play, for the first time this season. I’ve never been to Beckenham before and Stokes was not-out overnight so I was looking forward to some fireworks. Unfortunately, the covers had leaked so all I saw on the pitch all day were ground staff and umpires poking at the wet patch and shaking their heads mournfully. However, I found a lovely little café for a spot of brunch, and then a gorgeous park I’d never heard of before (Beckenham Place Park) for a good wander around before heading back home.

As predicted, there were a lot of weather-affected games, but also some excitement. Northamptonshire’s game against Gloucestershire went down to the wire, and Somerset would have had a good chance of an unlikely victory if bad light hadn’t intervened. I don’t think anyone was expecting Yorkshire to beat Surrey so comprehensively, and Kent looked to have Durham on the ropes before rain interrupted their flow and put paid to any chance of a result.

We’ve got a break now until mid-June, as the T20 and International seasons get underway. Don’t forget Surrey v Hampshire starting on the 7th June if you need your county championship fix a week earlier than the other teams provide!

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County Championship 2026 Round 6

I’ve really enjoyed this round of games – lots of results, several tight finishes, and quite a few unexpected twists. It felt like if you went away for an hour, you would miss something crucial and the game would have swung right round. The highlight had to be 18-year-old Tom Norton taking a hat-trick on debut – and a hat-trick of three well-established batsmen, all for ducks. It’s going to be hard for him to top that next week.

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