Worcestershire 2026 County Championship Full Season Preview
- 5 days ago
- 4 min read
by Ronan Alexander & The Cricket Draft
With the cricket season fast approaching, now is the time to ensure you and your club are covered! Don’t risk the season with under insurance & outdated valuations; contact ASI, the specialist sports broker and PCA partner, to get your club or your own policy sorted before the first ball is bowled.
County Championship Values for 2026
Banker, Wildcard, Young Gun & England Watch
Banker: Tom Taylor (BWL) £7.2m
Tom Taylor has a fantastic red-ball record with the ball, averaging under 30 across his career, but 2025 was his best summer. He ended the year as the leading wicket-taker in county cricket, taking 58 scalps at an average of 22.88. Valued at £6.9m last year and featuring in only 9.8% of squads, he looks to be a great pick given that the conditions at New Road really favor seam bowling, where Taylor will lead the attack.
Wildcard: Ethan Brookes (ALR) £5.7m
After making the move from Warwickshire, Brookes performed extremely well last summer. He provided a cheaper option at £4.9m and played all 14 matches for his county. He contributed 788 runs while batting around number seven and chipped in with 12 wickets. Averaging 108 points per game and dropping a division, he could again be a reliable, cheaper option that goes under the radar this summer.
Young Gun: Isaac Mohammed (BAT) £4.0m
A 17-year-old, top-order, left-handed batter who made his first-class debut in September last summer. He also featured in eight Vitality Blast matches for the club, where his strike rate of 154 at the top of the order impressed. There appears to be a spot within the batting order for a youngster to step in at the moment; Mohammed could be that man and will be looking to impress and nail down his place in the red-ball side.
England Watch: Kashif Ali (BAT) £5.4m
Not someone who seems to be on England’s radar at the moment, but since making his first-class debut in 2022, he has been a standout performer across all three formats. The 28-year-old was a product of the South Asian Cricket Academy and really burst onto the scene with some impressive performances. He didn’t have his best campaign in 2025, but dropping to Division Two may help him return to his best form. He has been playing first-class cricket in Pakistan during the winter.
Potential Starting XI for GW 1
2025 Review
After being favourites for the drop in 2025, Worcestershire couldn’t quite shake off that tag as they unfortunately suffered relegation last year. They won only one match last summer, suffering eight defeats en route to Division Two.
New Road heavily favoured seam bowling in 2025; seamers bowled 92% of the overs there and averaged 20.5 runs per wicket, making it no surprise they’ve added seamer Beyers Swanepoel to their ranks for 2026. Despite where the team ended up, there were several positives to take, especially the performance of Tom Taylor, the top wicket-taker in county cricket with 58. Jake Libby was also one of only 20 players to pass 1,000 runs and will look to maintain that solidity ahead of their push to bounce back to the top flight in 2026.
2025 Stat Attack
Tom Taylor: Led the county circuit with 58 wickets. He also ranked seventh among bowlers (min. three appearances) for average points scored, with 164.5 points per game.
Gareth Roderick: Topped the charts for the most catches in county cricket last summer, finishing with 57.
Jake Libby: Finished as the 10th highest run-scorer in the country with 1,060 runs (average of 44.17), including four centuries and two fifties.
Ben Allison: Recorded the joint-most wickets for players valued at £6.0m or less, taking 40 wickets at an average of 28.88.
Ethan Brookes: Tallied 788 runs, the ninth-highest total for an all-rounder in the game during the 2025 season.
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Player Ins & Outs
It has been a relatively quiet winter period for the Pears, with no new additions to the squad as of yet, while Tom Hinley and Yadvinder Singh have both been released by the club. Worcestershire have added South African bowling all-rounder Beyers Swanepoel as their first overseas signing, while Academy graduate Dan Lategan has also signed as an overseas.
They may look to add again in the overseas slots, which was occupied last season by a rotation of players; Jacob Duffy and Khurram Shahzad provided seam options, while Henry Nicholls bolstered the batting. The club may look for another seamer to suit their home conditions or opt for a top-order batter. Meanwhile, Sikandar Raza and Usama Mir will fill the overseas quota for this summer’s T20 cricket.
2026 Fixtures
Worcestershire start the season with two away matches as they travel to Derbyshire and then Middlesex. This will hopefully allow New Road a longer period of recovery time after the copious amounts of rain we’ve had over the winter. Kent will be the first team to visit New Road in Game Week 4, before the Pears go to Northants and then on to face Durham and Lancashire back-to-back, two huge games that will go a long way toward determining their season.
Worcestershire’s two games in June are both on home soil, as Middlesex and Gloucestershire come to New Road. Worcestershire then end the season at home by taking on Derbyshire to see out the summer. One has to wonder if there will be everything to play for in that final match, with two teams potentially desperate for promotion.
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