Somerset poised to finish second again as 136-year County Championship wait goes on
Another runners-up finish beckons at Taunton
Every English cricket season now starts with an Indian spring, but this one is forecast to end in an Indian summer too — warm, dry, and a final late blessing for the County Championship. Warwickshire, 11 points clear at the top, host a dejected Leicestershire at Edgbaston. Somerset, second again, play Surrey at Taunton. Nottinghamshire, the defending champions, take on Yorkshire at Trent Bridge. For the championship’s devoted followers — those who follow via scorecards, streams and the BBC’s excellent local radio — this week promises the very best cricket of a summer already crowded with the Hundred, the Blast, a humdrum Test series against New Zealand and Pakistan, a white-ball tour by India, and a desultory pair of Twenty20 and one-day international series against Sri Lanka.
Only cricket could engineer a schedule in which the final round of its premier domestic competition is shoved to the back end of September and still expected to compete with the national team for attention. In the era of the Hundred, the championship is treated as sporting Victoriana — yet it remains some of the hardest cricket there is, a six-month slog across the counties. It means plenty, especially in Taunton, where the town’s football side plays in the Southern League Premier Division South and the rugby union Titans compete in National League 2 West.
‘Winning our first Championship is the main goal’
This time last year, Tom Banton, then 27, was talking about whether he could break into the Test team. “Winning our first County Championship, that is the main goal for me,” he said. This summer, Banton quit red-ball cricket. As the writer notes, for every player who talks up the importance of red-ball cricket, there is another who walks away from it — but no one ever put up a plaque for a quick 40 in a 50-over game against Sri Lanka in September.
A 136-year hoodoo
The personal sting is acute for a Somerset-born correspondent who began in the press box at Taunton, watching Ian Blackwell bat while the Daily Telegraph’s David Green idly asked for help with a cryptic crossword. If the wait pains him, just imagine Vic Marks, 50 years after making his debut for the county. Somerset’s annual tilt at the title has become the most compelling story in county cricket — and one of the oldest hoodoos in sport. This century they have finished runners-up six times, and in the past decade alone have come second in 2016, 2018, 2019, and third in 2024 and 2025.
Many point to 2010 as the cruellest. Six points clear at the start of the final day against Durham at Chester-le-Street, then ECB chair Giles Clarke had even flown up with the trophy. Needing eight wickets and a modest chase, Somerset watched Dale Benkenstein bat through the afternoon; they were left needing an impossible 188 in 17 overs. Elsewhere, Nottinghamshire scrambled the runs and wickets to draw level with 38 minutes remaining and took the title on a tie-break.
2016 stung too. Top of the table with a day left, Somerset saw Middlesex and Yorkshire concoct a result with 10 overs of declaration bowling, leaving Yorkshire needing 240 off 40 overs to win the championship. They fell short, but Middlesex did not. Compared with those heartbreaks, this year’s campaign felt kinder — until Headingley last week, when Yorkshire were six wickets down and only 65 ahead before Dom Bess and George Hill put on 166 for the seventh wicket, and Somerset were bowled out for 101.
Perhaps there is a twist: maybe Somerset beat Surrey, maybe Leicestershire — losers of Sunday’s one-day final and freshly docked 27 points for a dodgy pitch — become the first side to beat Warwickshire at home. Or perhaps it is best to save what hope remains for next season. But so long as it still hurts, it still matters.