A Yorkshire legend who continues to shine
Back-to-back Rothesay County Championship winner Adam Lyth has designs on more silverware with Yorkshire, and he did all he could to fast-track that aim in 2024.
Classy opener Lyth helped the county achieve promotion back to Division One with a fabulous haul 1,215 runs, including five centuries – the second best season’s haul in Division Two.
Lyth, 37-years-old, plans to extend his career for as long as possible.
In 2023, he played his 200th first-class game for Yorkshire and chalked up 1,019 runs with three centuries during another impressive four-day season.
Lyth made seven Test Match appearances for England in the summer of 2015. That short burst at the highest level saw him score his only Test century against New Zealand at Headingley and then win the Ashes.
Lyth is closing in on 15,000 career runs in all first-class cricket, but his success has not just been against the red ball.
The Whitby-born left-hander is also Yorkshire’s leading run-scorer in the Vitality Blast, with his current haul of 4,223 leaving him way ahead of second-placed Andrew Gale (2,260).
In 2017, he lit up Headingley with a sparkling, record-breaking 161 off 73 balls in a Blast win over Northamptonshire. It remains the highest ever score in English Cricket and was the third highest T20 score in the world at the time.
A product of Scarborough CC, he was awarded with a Yorkshire testimonial year in 2021 and has captained the county sporadically across the various formats.
His brother Ashley played non-league football for Scarborough, while Adam had junior trials with Manchester City. Adam is a regular on the overseas franchise circuit.
In 2023, Lyth formed a successful opening partnership with newcomer Fin Bean in the Championship and, at the start of the year, he helped Perth Scorchers win Australia’s Big Bash League title.
The success of that opening partnership with Bean has perhaps best shown through the middle of 2024 when they shared 307 on the opening day of the county’s four-day win over Gloucestershire at Scarborough. Lyth contributed an excellent 129 to the highest ever opening stand at North Marine Road.
UPDATED: Feb 2025.
