Bamber named County Championship Player of the Year at CMC Awards

The annual awards lunch took place at Lord’s, with Bamber one of six award recipients.

Bamber was recognised after spearheading Warwickshire’s march to the title. Having played every match of the campaign, Bamber took 69 wickets, the most in either division, including 32 in the Bears’ sensational run-in, which saw them win five of their last six games to lift the coveted Championship trophy.

With any player in the men’s game eligible for the award, Bamber came out on top after journalists from the ECB Reporters Network voted on the best players in each match throughout the season, building a shortlist for CMC members to pick their winner at the end of the campaign.

Full list of winners:

NV Play Men’s Young Cricketer of the Year - Naavya Sharma

Women’s Young Cricketer of the Year, supported by Vitality - Tilly Corteen-Coleman

County Championship Player of the Year, in association with The Borders Distillery - Ethan Bamber

Bob Willis Trophy for England Player of the Year, supported by Vitality - Ollie Robinson

Women’s Cricket Award, in association with JM Finn - Kirstie Gordon

Disability Cricketer of the Year, in association with MCC - Angus Brown

Middlesex and England Lions quick Naavya Sharma became the latest entry to the illustrious list of winners of the NV Play Young Cricketer of the Year Award at the Cricket Media Club’s 80th anniversary Vitality Awards Lunch.

Voted by the club’s 450-strong membership, Sharma took the award, which dates back to 1950 and counts most of England’s greatest post-war cricketers among its previous winners, including Geoffrey Boycott, Ian Botham, James Anderson, Joe Root and Ben Stokes. Sharma is the 77th winner, and takes the prize for superb performances in Middlesex’s Metro Bank One-Day Cup triumph, as well as 35 wickets in just nine County Championship matches at an average of 21.

Robinson becomes the fifth winner of the Bob Willis Trophy – named in honour of the legendary former England fast bowler – after a sensational return to Test cricket this summer. Having been away from international cricket for two years, Robinson took 28 wickets in just four matches at an average of just 9.3, propelling him back into the top five of the ICC’s Test bowling rankings.

England youngster Tilly Corteen-Coleman was voted by the membership as the Vitality Women’s Young Cricketer of the Year, with the award replacing the club’s Emerging Cricketer of the Year, which was won by Davina Perrin in 2025. Corteen-Coleman, who turned 19 in August, made her England debuts in both white-ball formats, was part of the T20 World Cup squad that lost the final to Australia at Lord’s, and excelled for her county Surrey and Hundred franchise Southern Brave.

Kirstie Gordon was chosen by a CMC panel as the winner of the Women’s Cricket Award for 2026. Gordon represented Scotland at the T20 World Cup, but captained the Blaze, who secured an extraordinary domestic treble, winning the Vitality Blast, Vitality County Cup and MetroBank One-Day Cup. The CMC panel, led by Raf Nicholson, said they were "in awe of both her resilience and leadership”.

Other winners at the annual CMC lunch, hosted at Lord’s on Tuesday, included England mixed disability cricketer Angus Brown who was named Disability Cricketer of the Year, after a superb year that saw him hit a 43-ball hundred against India, England’s first ton in the mixed disability format. He also made the fastest ever DPL hundred, from 45 balls.

Cricket Media Club chair, Rory Dollard, said: “The Vitality Cricket Media Club Awards marks another eventful year to remember for our sport, which continues to deliver on the field and in the headlines.

"As we celebrate our 80th anniversary of watching, reporting and reflecting the game we love - fittingly, at the home of cricket - the club is delighted to welcome the class of 2026 to a long and distinguished list of CMC award winners.”