Samit Hits The Summit

Nottinghamshire all-rounder, Samit Patel, has surged to the top of the leader board for this year’s Walter Lawrence Trophy with a 62-ball hundred. The hard-hitting, middle-order batsman thumped 14 fours and 2 sixes in his innings against Leicestershire in the Royal London Cup game at Grace Road on May 23.

An outstanding county cricketer, the Leicester-born Patel has represented England in 6 Tests, 36 One-Day Internationals and 18 T20 Internationals. However, perceived fitness issues have, controversially, seen him omitted from the national side in recent years, despite his form for Nottinghamshire being
consistently impressive.

The 2017 season proved a vintage one for the 33-year-old as he topped Notts’ first-class batting averages with 906 runs at an average of 53.29, helping them win promotion. Patel also proved to be a pivotal presence in the county’s winning both limited-over trophies, during which he amassed just under 1,000 runs. He was Man of the Match in the NatWest T20 Final and, to complete a remarkable summer, added the PCA’s Most Valuable Player Award as well as the PCA’s Players’ Player Award to his tally.

Now in its 84th year, the Walter Lawrence Trophy, awarded for the fastest hundred of the season, is open to all domestic county competitions as well as One-Day Internationals, T20 Internationals and Test Matches in England.

Leicestershire v Nottinghamshire scorecard
Samit Patel’s career statistics


Tenacious Teen Ellie

Sixteen-year-old Ellie Mitchell of Cornwall Women has swept into the lead for this year’s Walter Lawrence Women’s Award with a blistering innings of 158 not out. Sharing in an opening partnership of 300 with Caitlin Burnett, Ellie’s innings, which contained 14 fours and was scored off 157 balls, proved decisive as her team beat Wiltshire Women by a whopping 276 runs in the ECB Division 3 match at Newquay on May 13.

Ellie overtook the season’s early leader, New Zealand captain Suzie Bates, who had posted a score of 148 for Hampshire Women six days earlier.

Having started playing cricket at 10 years old at Helston CC, Ellie continued through their under-11, 13 and 15 age groups and was selected for the Cornwall under-13 girls team at 11 years old and has been representing the county ever since. She has also played for Redruth CC and was selected for the Kia Super League, Western Storm development squad last year.



The quartet of Walter Lawrence Trophy awards, supported by Veuve Clicquot, encompass four distinct areas of the game: the Walter Lawrence Trophy, for the fastest century of the season; the MCC Universities award for the highest score by a batsman from the six MCC Universities against the first-class counties or in the MCCU Championship; The Walter Lawrence Women’s Award for the batsman who makes the highest individual score in a season from the ECB Women’s One-Day Cup and all England Women’s matches played on home soil, and, finally, the Walter Lawrence Schools Award for the highest score by a school batsman against MCC.