A warm welcome to the revamped Walter Lawrence Trophy website, featuring the 90-year-old award for the fastest century of the season, together with the Walter Lawrence Women’s Award and the Walter Lawrence Schools Award.

As this season enters the final furlong, the new leader in the quest for the Trophy is England’s Phil Salt, who scored a record-breaking 39-ball hundred against South Africa in the Second T20 International at Old Trafford on September 12. The 29-year-old opener’s stunning century was the fastest by an England batsman in T20 Internationals, and his final score of 141 not out was the highest in T20Is by an England player, eclipsing his 119 v West Indies in 2023, which was the previous highest. Salt is also the England scorer of the fourth and sixth highest innings!

On a night that saw records tumbling, South Africa won the toss and asked England to bat, a decision they were soon to rue as Salt and Jos Buttler thrashed the bowling with some incendiary batting. The pair had pummelled 126 runs when Buttler fell on 80, off just 30 balls, in the seventh over but Salt, along with Jacob Bethell and Harry Brook, continued the onslaught to post a total of 304 for 2. Salt’s 39-ball hundred included 13 fours and 5 sixes, and his unbeaten 141, scored off 60 balls, included 15 fours and 8 sixes. It was England’s highest total in T20Is and, as South Africa subsided in their chase to 158 all out, their largest margin of victory, 146 runs, in T20Is.

The Welsh-born wicket-keeper batsman attended school in Chester, and at the age of 10 his family moved to Barbados, returning to England five years later. There he won a scholarship to play cricket at Reed School in Surrey and joined the county’s academy. In 2013 Salt played for Guildford CC and then joined Sussex, where his aggressive batting in the leagues caught the eye. He made his one- day debut in the Royal London One-Day Cup in 2015 against Essex and his first-class debut in July, 2016 for Sussex against Pakistan. All the while his reputation in the white-ball game gathered momentum and eventually he was called up for the England squad in 2019. However he was made for wait for his debut, which eventually arrived on July 8, 2021 against Pakistan. Since then, Salt has racked up 33 One-Day International and 45 T20 International appearances. He was part of the England team that won the 2022 ICC T20 World Cup and made history after scoring two consecutive centuries in T20Is against West Indies. In first-class cricket he has scored 2,770 runs (avge, 35.28) with 6 hundreds and 14 fifties.

Salt moved from Sussex to Lancashire in 2022 and his fearsome ball-striking has seen him representing an impressive list of teams around the globe including Manchester Originals, Barbados Tridents, Adelaide Strikers, Kolkata Knight Riders, Lahore Qalanders, Delhi Capitals, Desert Vipers, Abu Dhabi Knight Riders, Pretoria Capitals, Islamabad United, Royal Challengers and Dambulla Giants.

The Walter Lawrence Trophy, now in its 91 st year, is awarded for the fastest hundred of the season and is open to all domestic county competitions as well as One-Day Internationals, T20 Internationals, The Hundred and Test matches in England. Along with the Trophy, the winner will receive £2,500 plus a special medallion at the Walter Lawrence Trophy Presentation Dinner in the Long Room at Lord’s on November 5.

Meanwhile in the Walter Lawrence Women’s Award, for the player who makes the highest individual score in a season from ECB domestic cup games and all England Women’s matches played on home soil, Lauren Winfield-Hill has stormed her way into pole position with a massive innings of 194. Captaining Yorkshire Women, she snatched the lead from another Yorkshire team-mate, Ami Campbell, who had led the pursuit since the beginning of May with an unbeaten 165.

In the Metro Bank One-Day Cup, League 2 match at Canterbury against Kent on August 30, Yorkshire Women were put in to bat and Winfield-Hill, opening the innings, hammered the Kent attack, propelling her team to a total of 404 for 5. Lauren’s score of 194 came off 126 balls and included 34 fours and a six. Kent’s reply crumpled to a total of 125 all out as Yorkshire Women cruised to victory by 279 runs.

The York-born, 35 year-old wicket-keeper/batter, is a highly experienced cricketer, who has enjoyed particular success in the short-form game. She has played in 5 Tests, 55 One-Day Internationals and 44 T20 Internationals for England. In addition to Yorkshire, Lauren has played for The Oval Invincibles, The Northern Superchargers, The Diamonds, Amazons, Perth Scorchers, Melbourne Stars, Guyana Amazon Warriors, Brisbane Heat and Super Women. Playing for the Northern Diamonds, she was named as Player of the Year in the 2022 Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy as the tournament’s leading run-scorer with 470 runs at an average of 78.30, and again the leading run-scorer in the 2023 Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy, with 663 runs at an average of 51.00.

The winner of the Walter Lawrence Women’s Award will receive £2,500 plus a special medallion at the Walter Lawrence Trophy Presentation Dinner in the Long Room at Lord’s on November 5.