Those of us lucky enough to watch county cricket in the 1980s, with a packet of Salt’n’Shake in one hand and an autograph book in the other, could tick off Viv Richards at Somerset, Malcolm Marshall at Hampshire, Michael Holding at Derbyshire (imagine!) and Courtney Walsh at Gloucestershire in only a couple of games. And that was just for starters.
The growth of franchise cricket means that players at the peak of their powers will rarely now sign on the dotted line to spend their entire summer in northern climes perfecting their red-ball skills. But the appeal remains, like a sudden blast of Madonna’s Into the Groove from a passing car as you wait for the lights to change. The 2025 County Championship overseas roster is an intriguing one. Choose your games carefully and you have a chance to watch some of the world’s best do battle against each other and the indignities of the British weather.
Related: County Championship 2025: team-by-team guide to the new season
There is a mix of faces flying in, from those who have made county grounds their second homes, such as Kemar Roach at the Oval, the perpetually nomadic, such as Shan Masood, now on to his third county with Leicestershire, and exciting new talents such as the left-handed Australian opening batter Caleb Jewell, setting up shop at Derby’s County Ground, beckoned by the promises of Mickey Arthur.
Middlesex made the marquee signing of the winter, unveiling New Zealand’s Kane Williamson, who will arrive at the club in mid-May before their first Blast game and will remain until the end of September, barring his time with London Spirit.
Other second-division imports include Sri Lanka’s Asitha Fernando, who lands at Sophia Gardens on the back of doing so well against England last year, and Marcus Harris, who will wear the red rose for the entire summer, legwork done during previous stints with Leicestershire and Gloucestershire. The leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal, Jos Buttler’s chess opponent of choice during Indian Premier League lulls, returns to Northamptonshire to inspect the new broom being whisked about by the incoming head coach, Darren Lehmann.
There will be two Australian Camerons at Bristol – the new red-ball captain Bancroft, who will be available for the entire summer, barring the first game, and Green, who plays courtesy of a mysterious benefactor – in the words of a club spokesperson, “Probably not Arron Banks.” Green will thunder his boots into the ground between games three to seven, starting with the away game against Adam Hollioake’s Kent. Gloucestershire have also signed the versatile Australian all-rounder Beau Webster, who can switch from swing to off-spin with the flick of a wrist. He’ll play mostly in the Blast, but will be available for the Championship fixtures against Yorkshire and Glamorgan in June.
Anderson Phillip was one of the few bright sparks in Lancashire’s dismal 2024 county season, collecting 15 wickets in three matches as relegation loomed large. He’s back again this year, this time for the full summer, with the possibility of bowling alongside his namesake Jimmy, who has been ruled out of the first block of games with an injury to his right calf.
“Last year was a good experience,” Phillip says. “The opportunity presented itself and I grabbed it with both hands. It was a difficult season for the guys but I admired the way they went about it. And I’m excited to share a dressing room with Jimmy Anderson.
“I’ve had many chats with our coaches back in the West Indies – most of our legends played a lot of cricket in England. It is something that is looked back on fondly. Playing in England helped West Indian cricket a lot. Red-ball cricket develops your cricketing skills. Once you play red ball it becomes easier to play white ball.”
His countryman Jayden Seales, who was a revelation at Hove in the first part of last season (38 wickets in seven games) has re-signed for Sussex – though this time as a Division One player. Meanwhile Kemar Roach is welcomed back to south London for the fifth successive season – he’ll play only the first four games but is a key and much-loved part of Surrey’s Championship-winning side.
A familiar face in Mohammad Abbas returns, though this time in the unfamiliar colours of Nottinghamshire, after 180 wickets at 19 across four summers in Southampton. He is due to play six games and arrives in May to replace the Victorian seamer Fergus O’Neill. Nottinghamshire have also signed the exciting South African wicketkeeper-batter Kyle Verreynne, who averages more than 50 in first-class cricket. The New Zealand captain, Tom Latham, was due in Birmingham but will miss the start of Warwickshire’s season after breaking a hand in training for domestic club Canterbury.
Up in the north-east, Durham, already blessed by David Bedingham’s services (Division One’s highest scorer last year) have persuaded over the exciting Australian seamer Brendan Doggett until the end of May. Somerset are smug after buttoning up Matt Henry for the first seven games, the New Zealander Jacob Duffy goes to New Road in the quest to keep Worcestershire in Division One, while Nathan Smith gets the possibly easier job of helping Surrey to secure their fourth title in a row. Dean Elgar will bat and bat and Simon Harmer will bowl and bowl for Essex.
Also in the shop window are the once overseas but now locally qualified Dan Worrall, who may be snapped up by Brendon McCullum before the summer is out, and Zafar Gohar, who hotfoots it over from Bristol to Lord’s.
It’s not a bad roll call. And if you judge the Championship by the players who choose to play in it, there’s life in the old dog yet.
Saca looking forward to ‘biggest summer’
The South Asian Cricket Academy is one of English cricket’s biggest success stories of the past five years. Set up to fix the disparity between the number of south Asian cricketers playing recreational cricket and those making it in the professional game, it has guided a number of young players through an unfamiliar and sometimes unfriendly system.
Seven Saca graduates go into the Championship season with county contracts. The most written about is Yorkshire’s Jafer Chohan, a leg-spinner who sparked England’s interest and played in the Big Bash. The fast bowler Zaman Akhter, who like Chohan was part of the Lions setup last winter, is at Gloucestershire; while Kashif Ali, Saca’s first graduate in 2022, who spent his winter working on his batting in Pakistani first-class cricket, and the pace bowler Yadvinder Singh, coming back from a stress fracture, are with Worcestershire. The all-rounder Zain ul-Hassan is at Glamorgan, the batter Zen Malik signed a two-year deal with Warwickshire in November, and Andy Umeed is almost part of the furniture at Somerset.
With a number of other young men trialling around the counties, including Arafat Bhuiyan (formerly of Kent) at Surrey, and the fast bowlers Chinmay Mullapudi at Bristol and Hassan Mughal at Old Trafford, and on the back of a pre-season tour of Abu Dhabi, the co-founder Tom Brown is looking forward to “our biggest summer yet”. Saca have 50 days of cricket against county second XIs and a game against a team from Mumbai. “We’re in a really good place right now.”
Since opening its doors in 2022, Saca has had more than 500 applicants. As its funding has increased – it gets £135,000 from the England and Wales Cricket Board, plus sponsorship and partnerships – it has been able to expand and has 60 players on the books.
But the aim has always been obsolescence – ideally by 2028. “The south Asian element can’t exist for ever, or you become relied upon and counties feel they don’t need to worry about doing the work for these players,” Brown says. “But we may continue in some other form because what we’re doing works at producing pro cricketers.”
What that form takes is open for discussion, possibly a programme aimed at a different community or one to fill the gap for players over 18 now the universities are no longer funded by the ECB and the MCC younger cricketers and unicorns no longer exist. “If that’s not rectified,” Brown says, “we are officially the only over-18s programme.” Watch this space.
Quote of the week
I love Vinted … I don’t really spend money in main shops any more, I find myself looking at the clothes, feeling the material and thinking, I could get this cheaper and better on Vinted! There is so much greenwashing around, this is a win-win” – England’s Maia Bouchier on the joy of second-hand clothes.
Memory lane
29 March 2010: There was a full moon hovering over the County Championship season opener between Middlesex and Durham. Yes, it wasn’t the most traditional start to the new campaign, with floodlights and a pink ball in use at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi. Durham’s bowlers wasted no time in wrapping up a comprehensive 311-run victory. The champions resumed on day four needing three more wickets and mopped up the tail in 45 minutes.
Still want more?
Simon Burnton and Tanya Aldred tee up the new county season with their team-by-team Championship guide.
Charlotte Edwards has been named as the new England women’s head coach, nine years after she played her last international match. Raf Nicholson explains why the ECB has hit on a winner.
In an interview with Taha Hashim, the Surrey wicketkeeper Ben Foakes talks about the mental toll of his stop-start Test career, the freedom of moving on and his T20 ambitions. Taha has also been busy chatting to Surrey’s Dom Sibley.
Derbyshire’s Pat Brown tells Ali Martin about his rise to prominence with a fiendish knuckleball in 2019 and how he is hoping to revive his fortunes after injury struggles.
And after years of strife, Yorkshire start the county season with a new coach, a strong squad and a burning desire to prove the critics wrong, writes Tanya.
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