Warwickshire seal ninth County Championship title as Bamber stars
Warwickshire are champions of England again. They sealed their ninth County Championship title — England and Wales's four-day, first-class league — by beating Leicestershire by an innings and 79 runs at Edgbaston on 26 September. Edgbaston
An innings win means Warwickshire only needed to bat once. They bowled Leicestershire out twice and still finished 79 runs ahead.
Fast bowler Ethan Bamber finished the job. He took 5-52 in the title decider, with Chris Woakes taking 3-38 alongside him, and Bamber claimed the final wicket that confirmed the trophy. ESPNcricinfo
It was a fitting end to Bamber's season. The 27-year-old finished as the country's leading wicket-taker in the Championship with 69 wickets in 14 games. BBC Sport
He timed his best form for the title run-in. Warwickshire won five of six games after the Championship resumed in August. In that stretch, Bamber took 32 wickets at an average of 12.71 runs per wicket.
He took four five-wicket hauls across the season — five wickets in a single innings — with three of them coming in that post-August burst.
The signs were there early in September. Bamber took five wickets as Warwickshire bowled out Glamorgan for just 69 at Edgbaston, then hit back with career-best figures of 6-26 against Essex a week later. That Essex display earned him Player of the Round for the penultimate round of the 2026 Rothesay County Championship.
Captain Ed Barnard described Bamber as "the nicest man in county cricket". Bowling coach Graeme Welch and first-team coach Ian Westwood have overseen a relentlessly consistent attack.
Warwickshire took 41 of a possible 42 bowling bonus points this season, the extra points awarded for taking wickets quickly in the first 110 overs of a first innings. Bamber and Woakes shared 96 Championship wickets between them.
Bamber joined from Middlesex ahead of last season. His record now leans heavily to his two home grounds, with 103 wickets at Lord's and 67 at Edgbaston compared with 138 at all other venues combined.
What makes this stand out is the mix of teamwork and individual streak. The BBC has already posed the question whether Bamber should now be on England's radar, and on these numbers it is easy to see why.
