Northamptonshire

Northamptonshire go into the season chasing the T20 Blast for a third time in four years, after lifting the trophy again in 2026 to sit alongside their titles from 2013 and 2016.

That imbalance runs through the club's history. Northamptonshire were only admitted to first-class cricket in 1905, more than two decades after their founding on 31 July 1878, following a meeting at the George Hotel in Kettering. The closest the county came to winning the Championship was Division Two in 2000. Between the wars the gap showed starkly: a run of 99 matches without a Championship win, stretching from 1935 to 1939.

The one-day game has been kinder. A NatWest Trophy double in 1976 and 1992, followed by the Benson and Hedges Cup in 1980, gave Northamptonshire a run of limited-overs pedigree that the T20 era has since extended rather than replaced.

The nickname Steelbacks nods to the Northamptonshire Regiment, and the sides that have carried it have drawn on players who went on to define eras well beyond Northampton — Allan Lamb's Test career and Monty Panesar's spin both traced back through this dressing room. Ben Duckett came through as a academy graduate before his England recall.

Northants now build their Championship campaign around consolidation in Division One, with the short-format trophy already banked and the longer game still the target they have chased since 1905.