County News/The Hundred
A fitting finale to One-Day Cup group stages as knockout path set
The group stages of the Metro Bank One-Day Cup reached a thrilling conclusion as four sides booked their place in Friday’s play-off round and the road to next month’s Trent Bridge finale became clear.
The group stages of the Metro Bank One-Day Cup reached a thrilling conclusion as four sides booked their place in Friday’s play-off round and the road to next month’s Trent Bridge finale became clear.
Discourse pitting the concurrent One-Day Cup and Hundred competitions against one another have dominated the past three weeks but importantly the action itself has been compelling throughout, however imperfect the overriding product has become.
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50-over cricket alive and well
The one-day format has been subject of an increasingly uncertain future, both domestically and internationally, amid a modern era of schedule congestion and T20 franchise boom.
However, the healthy crowds around the country, who have been able to spend a day at the cricket where the only thing that matters is on the field, have been treated by the captivating ebb-and-flow nature of the format that remains cherished despite the low commercial interest.
The competition really sprung into life at the business end.
On Friday, Group B alone produced four nail-biting finishes, including a Scarborough spectacle, whilst Sunday saw Glamorgan win a last-ball thriller, over 700 runs scored at Hove and the front-runners in Group A all slip up.
That all led to a chaotic final round with permutations galore.
Nottinghamshire continued to dictate their recent head-to-head battle with Surrey across formats as they emerged victorious in a high-quality decider at the Kia Oval, with George Munsey’s majestic century overshadowing Jason Roy’s return to the hosts’ 50-over side.
Lancashire managed to leapfrog Notts into second with a huge win at Taunton, posting their highest ever List A score of 443-6 in the process.
Meanwhile, after Yorkshire swept aside Essex to clinch second in the other group, Durham survived a huge scare to progress in third.
They were well beaten at holders Worcestershire but a last-wicket stand managed to edge past the 204 runs they needed to remain above their opponents on NRR.
That opened the door for Hampshire but despite Andrew Neal’s heroics with the bat, they fell agonisingly short at home to Derbyshire in a high-scoring thriller to miss out on a knockout spot for the first time since 2021.
Leicestershire and Middlesex await in final four
Leicestershire and Middlesex had already progressed ahead of Tuesday’s action but both were later confirmed as group winners and thus semi-final hosts for this coming Sunday.
The Foxes won the trophy back in 2023 with a dramatic victory over Hampshire at Trent Bridge, though for Middlesex, white-ball success has been hard to come by. This will be their first List A semi-final since the 1990 NatWest Trophy.
Middlesex are also flying the flag for the South in an otherwise all-North affair.
Leicestershire will face the winner of Yorkshire versus Nottinghamshire.
Yorkshire were beaten at the semi-final stage last year and have not won a limited overs crown since the 2002 C&G Trophy, whilst they still have memories of Somerset’s T20 quarter-final heist at Headingley last month.
All is quite rosy for Notts at the moment, the Championship winners are well-placed to defend their title and they ended a poor recent white-ball record with an appearance at T20 Finals Day, though it was nine years ago when they previously triumphed at Lord’s in this competition.
Middlesex will take on the winners of Lancashire versus Durham at Radlett.
Lancashire lost to Kent in the 2022 final and have not won a one-day title this century, whilst Durham were last champions in 2014 – coincidentally the previous campaign in which a certain Ben Stokes featured.
Durham and Yorkshire are also two of the four sides never to win the T20 Blast.
Red ball priorities may come into focus over the coming weeks but it is fair to say a white-ball trophy would be a welcome bonus for all remaining contenders.
Libby’s form underpins quality on display
The One-Day Cup may have been stripped of all its shiny assets since the Hundred’s inception but it has perhaps been inaccurately tarnished with the ‘developmental’ label, when in fact there are still many top pros turning out for their counties.
Worcestershire’s Jake Libby enjoyed a stellar campaign, rattling off four consecutive centuries within the space of ten days – 109* vs Middlesex, 109 vs Essex, 109* vs Sussex and 105 vs Glamorgan.
The 33-year-old now holds an average of 62.46 in List A cricket – surpassing Ruturaj Gaikwad as the highest on record with minimum 50 innings. Yet remarkably, his 517 runs at 86.16 was only enough for fourth in the run-scoring charts for the campaign.
Keaton Jennings, Tom Lammonby, Dom Sibley and Daniel Bell-Drummond also feature among the leading run-scorers.
Northamptonshire’s George Bartlett registered six half-centuries in eight innings, Derbyshire’s Martin Andersson continued his productive season with bat and ball, whilst another all-rounder in Yorkshire’s George Hill continues to push his England case.
Ben Stokes was an ever-present for Durham but perhaps did not have the sustained impact he would have wanted after a strong start.
Meanwhile, there was also a sprinkling of overseas class with Aussie Test hopeful Nathan McSweeney amassing six fifties and Indian leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal claiming 15 wickets for Northants, whilst South African wicketkeeper Kyle Verreynne averaged 88.60 for Notts.
The platform remains the most charming aspect
The One-Day Cup provides the opportunity for those either taking on greater responsibility in the absence of star players or those making early strides in their professional careers – 16-year-old seamer Charlie Taylor made his professional debut for Warwickshire in July.
All-rounder Noah Thain, 21, ended the group stages as the tournament top run-scorer with 571 runs at the top of the order for Essex.
Thain was one of eleven domestic players to score their first professional century during the campaign – Jack Hope-Bell (19), Alex Horton (22), George Garton (29), Hamza Shaikh (20), Josh De Caires (24), Ben Martindale (23), Gus Miller (24), Luc Benkenstein (21), Rocky Flintoff (18) and Andrew Neal (26) the others.
Rocky, son of England legend Andrew Flintoff, became Lancashire’s youngest centurion in their win at Somerset off just 65 balls with a brutal display reminiscent of his father.
Warwickshire’s Vansh Jani, 21, and Worcestershire wicket-keeper Henry Cullen, 23, both were unable to reach three figures but produced noteworthy performances with four half-centuries apiece.
Middlesex 20-year-old Naavya Sharma was the standout emerging seamer with 15 wickets at 18.73, following his breakthrough earlier this season in the red-ball side, whilst Ben Cliff’s tally of 18 wickets for Yorkshire was unmatched.
Left-arm seamer Noah Cornwell, 21, and spinner Fateh Singh, 22, also enjoyed productive campaigns, whilst 2025 breakout star Alex Green, 19, was in the wickets once again for Leicestershire.
Player movement needs greater flexibility
There remained a slight frustration at the manner in which peripheral players in the Hundred were only drip-fed back to the their counties at the back end of the competition, and in many cases not at all, leaving a number of high-quality domestic names playing very little cricket over the past month.
Tom Abell, Kiran Carlson, Michael Pepper and Joe Weatherley did not feature in the One-Day Cup, despite each only making one appearance in the Hundred.
Ed Barnard, Max Holden, Matt Montgomery and Tawanda Muyeye all have not played for their respective Hundred franchises but only returned to their counties for one game, whilst Northamptonshire’s James Sales is one of a few Manchester Super Giants reserves to play no cricket.
Young guns Charlie Allison, Caleb Falconer, Eddie Jack, Manny Lumsden, Ben Mayes and Seb Morgan have all had limited opportunities in either competition – Mayes scored his maiden List A century on his return to the Hampshire side on Sunday.
Whilst counties are left waiting on players being released, London Spirit were able to cherry-pick Joe Moores from Lancashire at such a late stage in the competition.
From a schedule perspective, the final block of fixtures deserved more than a Tuesday slot, in similar fashion to the midweek T20 quarter-finals last month, though Old Trafford, York, Leicester and Radlett should hopefully have bumper crowds at the back end of the week.
As ever, there is a sizable gap of more than a month to the Trent Bridge final scheduled for September 20 – the previous two have both been heavily impacted by the weather.
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