Sonny Baker took 62 wickets in domestic cricket in 2026, including 21 in the Vitality Blast at an average of 11.76. He made his Test debut at the Kia Oval, won The Hundred with Manchester Super Giants and reached Blast Finals Day with Hampshire. On Wednesday night at Exhibition White City in London, his fellow professionals handed him the Toyota PCA Men’s Young Player of the Year award — and the 23-year-old became the first Hampshire cricketer to win it since the category was created in 1990.
“It’s awesome,” Baker said of the award, which is decided by a vote of the county playing staff. “It always means more when it’s coming from guys who you respect and play against. It’s a massive honour for me to get voted by the rest of the guys and there’s some pretty cool names on the trophy – some guys on there have gone on to have phenomenal careers, so I’m very proud.”
A season built on volume and pace
Baker’s year was unusual for a young fast bowler in that it held up across all three formats rather than fragmenting under the strain. His 62 domestic wickets broke down as 50 for Hampshire across the Rothesay County Championship and the Blast, plus 12 for Manchester Super Giants in a Hundred campaign that ended with the franchise’s first title — a five-wicket win over Trent Rockets at Lord’s in the first season under the rebranded identity following RPSG Group’s majority purchase of the former Manchester Originals.
The Blast numbers were the eye-catchers: 21 wickets at 11.76, with a best of 5-21, in a competition where seam bowlers routinely concede nine an over. Add 10 wickets for England and Baker finished the year with 72 in all cricket.
The international breakthrough came on 17 June, when he was named in Ben Stokes’s squad for the first Test against New Zealand at the Oval alongside Emilio Gay and James Rew. Baker touched 91mph on his first day in Test cricket and returned two for 63, dismissing Rachin Ravindra among three wickets in the match. His white-ball international record is still slim — four T20 internationals, two ODIs — and the early returns were brutal, 0-76 on ODI debut against South Africa in September 2025 and 0-52 from four overs on T20I debut against Ireland weeks later. His best short-form figures, 3-12 against Sri Lanka, came in the summer just gone.
Hampshire’s first, 36 years in
The significance of the award is partly in the roll call Baker has joined. The men’s young player prize has existed since 1990 and its winners read as a map of English cricket’s last three decades:
- Michael Atherton, the inaugural winner in 1990
- Andrew Flintoff (1998) and Matthew Hoggard (2000)
- Ian Bell (2004) and Alastair Cook (2005, 2006)
- Joe Root (2012) and Ben Stokes (2013)
- Harry Brook (2021, 2022), Jamie Smith (2024) and Rehan Ahmed (2025)
That no Hampshire player had won it before is striking for a county that has produced Shane Warne-era trophies, Chris Wood, Liam Dawson and a decade of white-ball contention. Baker, in fact, is not a Hampshire product at all. Born in Torquay in March 2003, he came through Somerset’s academy, made his List A debut for them in July 2021 and moved to the Utilita Bowl ahead of the 2024/25 season. He signed a contract extension in May 2026 that runs to 2028 — a deal that now looks like one of the better pieces of business in the county game.
Baker shares the 2026 honours list with Somerset pair Craig Overton and Sophie Luff, the men’s and women’s Players of the Year, and 19-year-old left-arm spinner Tilly Corteen-Coleman, the women’s young player. Heather Knight received the Outstanding Contribution award and Tammy Beaumont the ECB Special Merit award in front of more than 180 current players.
A winter measured in blocks, not milestones
Baker has been named in England’s squad for the ODI tri-series against Pakistan and Sri Lanka, which runs from 18 to 31 October across Rawalpindi and Lahore. Beyond that sits a crowded winter: three ODIs and five T20s against Australia from 13 November, then three Tests in South Africa starting at the Wanderers on 17 December, including the Boxing Day Test at Centurion, and three further ODIs in January.
For a bowler whose body has already cost him time — a back injury ruled him out of the 2022 Under-19 World Cup — the temptation to map out every selection is obvious. Baker is resisting it.
“I think the beauty of it is actually trying not to look too far forward because there is so much on,” he said. “For me the main thing is just trying to work on each section of the winter and then the year ahead and what am I trying to get out of it. If you keep stacking those periods of time on top of each other you’ll continually improve.”
England’s pace attack has spent two years cycling through replacements for injured first-choice bowlers. Baker’s 2026 was the first time he answered the only question that mattered: whether a bowler who can hit 91mph can also get through a full English summer. The peer vote suggests his colleagues noticed.
Sources: [The PCA](https://www.thepca.co.uk/press-release/overton-and-luff-win-pca-awards), [Yahoo Sports](https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/winning-young-player-award-awesome-123748178.html), [ReadCricket](https://readcricket.com/2026/10/02/sonny-baker-pca-young-player-award-2026/), [Wikipedia – Sonny Baker](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonny_Baker), [Wikipedia – PCA Player of the Year awards](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCA_Player_of_the_Year_awards), [ECB](https://www.ecb.co.uk/news/4455456/fixtures-for-england-mens-202627-tour-to-south-africa-announced), [Cricket Times](https://crickettimes.com/2026/08/manchester-super-giants-clinch-the-hundred-mens-2026-title-after-five-wicket-win-over-trent-rockets/)
**Word count:** 744 (article body).
Two notes on the facts, since they affect what I could assert:
– The PCA release gives **62 domestic wickets**; separate reporting breaks it into 50 for Hampshire + 12 for Manchester Super Giants, with 10 for England on top. I used both framings consistently rather than the conflicting “50 total” figure some outlets ran.
– One source describes Baker’s 3-12 v Sri Lanka as coming in his “first T20 appearance,” which contradicts his T20I debut record (0-52 v Ireland, 21 Sept 2025). I wrote it as his best short-form figures from the 2026 summer, not as a debut.
Sports journalist and editor at SportsPortal.net. Covers cricket, football, Formula 1, tennis, and basketball with a focus on how global sports connect with Pakistani audiences. Follows the PSL, Pakistan national cricket team, Premier League, and major international tournaments. Has reported on sports for digital audiences since 2021.
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