The 2024 County Championship season dribbled to an end on Sunday afternoon, handshakes taken as early as was polite, while the autumn roared in. It was the longest Championship season on record – stretching from 5 April to 29 September – finishing with the favourites, Surrey, easing to victory with one round to go and Sussex winning Division Two on the final day, a thousand supporters hanging around in gloves to watch Clare Connor present the trophy.
But how quickly things move on. Rod Bransgrove announced the sale of Hampshire to the Delhi Capitals co-owners before the Spin had time to pull the season’s trophies out of the Guardian cabinet where they have been gathering dust since last year. So belatedly, and somewhat overshadowed by powerbrokers in important shoes rustling papers in mahogany boardrooms, here are the summer’s County Championship awards.
The Mortimer and Whitehouse award for catch of the season
To James Bracey. An incredible match at Cheltenham College in early July finished on a pitch-perfect note as Glamorgan, chasing a world record of 593 to win, faced the last ball with a single needed for victory. The No 11, Jamie McIlroy, had a frantic swing at Ajeet Singh Dale and Bracey, with ungloved hand, leapt like a firecracker behind the stumps and held on before sprinting 50 yards to the boundary in celebration, his teammates a-leaping and a-hollering behind him. The most memorable tie in years.
The Harry Brook award for taking Test cricket in your stride
To Jamie Smith, spoken about in hallowed whispers at the Oval since he was a teenager, who finally made it into the England Test team against West Indies in July after Jonny Bairstow was forcibly shuffled aside. If not quite as elegant as his unpicked Surrey teammate Ben Foakes behind the stumps, he was outrageously unruffled and his batting princely. Between them, he and Gus Atkinson made the Championship look quite the nursery for the five-day game.
The John Curtice award for statistical excellence
To Jamie Porter and Ben Coad, who survived the trials and tribulations of various Kookaburra experiments to finish with 56 wickets apiece, the top wicket-takers in Divisions One and Two respectively. At 31 and 30, neither looks as if he will get the nod from England – but at Championship level, as Essex and Yorkshire know, they are indispensable.
The Liz Truss award for avoidable stock devaluation
To Essex who were docked 12 points after Feroze Khushi was found to have used a bat that was too large after a spot check by umpires. After Durham were docked 10 points in 2022 for a similar bat problem, it seems like quite an easy one to resolve.
The Mark Ramprakash award for distinguished domestic service
To Liam Dawson, who won the Professional Cricketers’ Association’s most valuable domestic player award last year and went even better in 2024, clutching 50 wickets for the first time, making 956 runs at just under 60 and helping Hampshire out of many a hole as well as escorting them to second place in the Championship. Did England tap him on the shoulder? No they did not. But Dawson seems to have made his peace with being overlooked for Jack Leach, for Rehan Ahmed, for Shoaib Bashir and for Tom Hartley. There’s a lesson in there somewhere – even if most of us don’t have the consolation of well-paid gigs on the franchise circuit to keep us warm.
The Gilbert Jessop award for outrageous hitting
To Louis Kimber. Leicestershire seemed to be slumping to a bog-standard defeat against Sussex in June when Kimber strolled out at No 8, a batting average of 24 under his belt. But something extraordinary happened at Hove that day, a kind of midsummer madness, as Kimber, suddenly seeing the ball like a planet, belted 243 off 127 balls, with 20 fours and 21 sixes, taking 43 from one Ollie Robinson over. The records kept on tumbling: fastest 200 in Championship history (100 balls), most sixes in a Championship innings (overhauling Ben Stokes’s 17), most runs before lunch in a Championship match (191), and all while wearing a thick long-sleeved jumper in June.
The gold award for outstanding performance
To Gareth Roderick’s century. A week after the death of the talented young Worcestershire all-rounder Josh Baker, his teammates were playing again, at Canterbury, the flags of the Frank Woolley pavilion flying at half mast, the sun absurdly warm. Worcestershire won the toss and, after a minute’s applause in Baker’s memory, walked out to bat. Roderick, somehow, found the wherewithal to hold everything together, out for 117 just before stumps on day one, and celebrated his hundred by tapping the 33 embroidered on the players’ shirts after Baker died (his squad number). Worcestershire defied the odds to avoid relegation and ended the season by retiring shirt 33 in Baker’s memory.
The Manchester United award for underachievement
To Lancashire, though it was a close-run thing between three big-name Test counties. Warwickshire, where Mark Robinson seems likely to move on, Nottinghamshire, who finally found their feet as autumn drew near, and relegated Lancashire. But the soggy handshake must go to (the other) Old Trafford where a combination of usually reliable senior pros falling on hard times, overseas imports failing to function and Nathan Lyon being pulled home early by Cricket Australia led to a side stuffed with talented but callow youths being relegated. Lancashire lost four games by an innings and gained only 15 batting points. The three points they earned during the draw with Worcestershire in the final game of the season were immediately lost due to a slow over rate. Time to hunker down and try again next year.
The party pooper prize
A joint award to the England and Wales Cricket Board, which continues to marginalise the Championship, and fossil fuel companies, whose supercharging of the climate crisis makes the jobs of groundstaff almost impossible at times, as well as existentially threatening the future of the game.
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