Warwickshire County Cricket Club is one of eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Warwickshire.
Founded in 1882, the club held minor status until it was elevated to first-class in 1894 pending its entry into the County Championship in 1895. Since then, Warwickshire have played in every top-level domestic cricket competition in England.
Warwickshire currently competes in three main competitions. In the County Championship, they compete in Division One (the top division), and last won it outright in 2026 (for a total of nine championship wins). They also participate in the 50 over Royal London One Day Cup and the T20 Blast.
Warwickshire's kit colours are all white with a dash of navy blue for the county championship, and for short-format cricket, they use navy blue and gold. Shirt sponsors include Haier (County Championship), and Haier (T20 Blast). The club's home is Edgbaston Cricket Ground in central Birmingham, which also regularly hosts Test and One-Day International matches.
Honours
First XI honours County Championship (9) – 1911, 1951, 1972, 1994, 1995, 2004, 2012, 2021, 2026 Division Two (2) – 2008, 2018 Gillette/NatWest/C&G/Friends Provident Trophy (5) – 1966, 1968, 1989, 1993, 1995 Sunday/Pro 40 League/CB40/Royal London One-Day Cup (5) – 1980, 1994, 1997, 2010, 2016 Division Two (1) – 2009 Benson & Hedges Cup (2) – 1994, 2002 NatWest t20 Blast (1) – 2014 Bob Willis Trophy (1) – 2021
Second XI honours Second XI Championship (2) – 1979, 1996 Second XI Trophy (1) – 2006 Minor Counties Championship (2) – 1959, 1962
Earliest cricket Cricket may have reached Warwickshire by the end of the 17th century. The Warwickshire & Staffordshire Journal was certainly aware of the sport in 1738 for it carried a report of a London v Mitcham game at the Artillery Ground on 11 August (London won by 1 wicket).
The earliest confirmed reference to cricket in the county is a match announcement in Aris’ Gazette on 15 July 1751.
There was a prominent club in Coventry towards the end of the 18th century which played two well-documented matches against Leicester in 1787 and 1788. Reports of both games are included in Fresh Light on 18th Century Cricket by G. B. Buckley. Leicester won both games by 45 and 28 runs respectively.
Club history
Warwickshire CCC was officially founded on 8 April 1882 at a meeting in The Regent Hotel, Leamington Spa. The club developed so well that by the time of the first official County Championship in 1890 it was playing some of the top first-class counties such as Surrey and Yorkshire. Warwickshire became first-class themselves in 1894 and surprised the cricket world with wins over Surrey at The Oval and Nottinghamshire. They competed in the County Championship from 1895 but despite being strong in batting, their bowling was, until the arrival of Sam Hargreave and Frank Field in 1899, very weak. From 1900 to 1906 they were strong enough to be in the upper-middle reaches of the table, but the decline of their bowling from 1907 returned them to the lower reaches of the table late in that decade.
Frank Foster, who first played as an amateur left-arm pace bowler in 1908 but improved greatly in 1910 as a result of slowing his pace to gain accuracy, still stands as Warwickshire's greatest all-rounder. In 1911 he headed both batting and bowling averages and, along with a fully fit Frank Field, enabled Warwickshire to take the Championship from the "Big Six"Yorkshire, Lancashire, Nottinghamshire, Middlesex, Kent and Surrey. for the only time between 1890 and 1935. Foster and Field took between then 238 wickets, but in Wisden nobody doubted that Warwickshire's win was largely caused by an abnormally dry summer, and the following three years saw them return to mid-table although Foster in 1914 displayed all-round form equal to that of 1911.
In 1919, with Foster having had an accident that ended his short career, Warwickshire fell to last in the table. They did not improve a great deal until the 1930s when Bob Wyatt's captaincy and the bowling of Mayer, Paine and Hollies moved them to fourth in 1934, but as Paine rapidly declined, they fell away. When Wyatt left for Worcestershire after World War II, they declined even further despite Hollies' wonderful bowling in 1946 – with no support at all, he took 175 wickets for only 15 each. The acquisition of New Zealand speedster Tom Pritchard gave Hollies the necessary support and by 1948 they had one of the strongest attacks in county cricket. It was this bowling power, along with effective, if not wonderful batting, that gave them the Championship in 1951. However, as with 1911, they fell off rapidly as their batting became unreliable over the rest of the decade. After Hollies' retirement in 1957, there were some very poor seasons (though they came fourth in 1959 due to Mike Smith's superb batting) until Tom Cartwright emerged as a top-class seam bowler in 1962. The county came second in 1964 but did not establish itself at the top until the late 1960s. In 1971 Lance Gibbs' magnificent bowling enabled them to come second, whilst brilliant batting gave them a clear Championship win in 1972.
Yet again, though, a Championship win was followed by a decline and the next twenty years saw the county almost always in the lower half of the table. In 1981 and 1982, with Bob Willis doing nothing for them whilst producing match-winning form for England, they averaged over 45 runs for each wicket they took – still a record. Only under the coaching of Bob Woolmer and captaincy of Dermot Reeve (with their allowed foreign player being one of Brian Lara, Shaun Pollock or Allan Donald) did the team become consistently successful. Although they had won the NatWest Trophy in 1989, it was their astonishing victory in the same competition in 1993, overhauling a record score posted by Sussex in the final, which launched their most dominant period in English cricket. In 1994 they secured a historic treble, winning the County Championship, Axa Equity & Law League (later the National Cricket League and Pro40) and Benson & Hedges Cup. In that season Lara set the world record for a first-class cricket score of 501 whilst playing for Warwickshire against Durham County Cricket Club; the team total of 810–4 declared in that match is also a club record. In 1995 they won the County Championship again, and also won the C&G Trophy. This was to be the last trophy of Dermot Reeve's captaincy with him stepping down during the 1996 season, Bob Woolmer also having moved on to coach South Africa. 1997 saw them lifting the AXA league trophy once again, but this proved to be a false dawn. Performances for the next few years were poor, including relegation to the second division of the County Championship and National Cricket leagues.
However they have since been promoted in both competitions (though relegated again in the National Cricket League), won the Benson & Hedges Cup in 2002 and strong performances with the bat saw the county reclaim the County Championship in 2004. Warwickshire were once again promoted in the national cricket league and played in the top division of both competitions in 2006.
Until the year 2005, the club captain was Nick Knight, the coach was John Inverarity, and the Chief Executive was Dennis Amiss, though all three stepped down at the end of the season. Heath Streak was appointed as captain for the 2006 and 2007 seasons, but resigned after one game of the 2007 season on 25 April 2007, and Darren Maddy replaced Streak as captain.
The 2007 Championship season was a big disaster for Warwickshire, who were relegated to Division Two, after not winning a single game since they topped the table in early May. They also got relegated from Pro40 league, a matter made worse when local rivals Worcestershire CCC clinched the title.
Since the end of the disastrous 2007 season, Warwickshire made several changes to the team and management staff. Controversial coach Mark Greatbatch was sacked and Ashley Giles replaced him as Director of Cricket. Former Warwickshire Bear and South Africa international Allan Donald joined the Bears' coaching staff. Fans favourite Dougie Brown also took up an Academy Coaching role. After a successful campaign in Division 2, the Bears were promoted back to the top flight after only a season's absence in September 2008.
Maddy stepped down from the captaincy in November 2008. Ian Westwood was announced as his replacement. In 2009 Indian seamer Sreesanth replaced Jeetan Patel, who was busy with national duties for New Zealand, to become the first Indian to join the club. Westwood, in turn, stepped down as captain at the end of the 2010 season. Jim Troughton took over as captain shortly after, before struggling with injury during the 2014 season. Varun Chopra stood in before Troughton retired from first-class cricket in 2015, promoting Chopra to permanent captain.
Early in 2016, Varun Chopra resigned the captaincy in order to focus on batting, with Ian Bell taking over as captain.
At the end of the 2016 season despite winning the Royal London Cup earlier in the season, Director of Cricket Dougie Brown was replaced by Jim Troughton as Head Coach with former Director of Cricket Ashley Giles returning to Edgbaston to take responsibility for all cricket associated with Warwickshire. Bell resigned as captain on 20 August 2017.
In 2021 Warwickshire won the County Championship under the captaincy of Will Rhodes and coach Mark Robinson. They completed a domestic double that season beating Lancashire in the Bob Willis Trophy.
Despite their double the next season almost saw Warwickshire relegated to Division 2. They were only saved by a 9 wicket haul from Liam Norwell, who took 9-62 on the final day of the season to beat Hampshire by five runs and relegate Yorkshire.
At the start of the 2026 season Ian Westwood was named as first team coach and Ed Barnard as captain. Warwickshire won the County Championship with Ethan Bamber as the top wicket taker with 69 wickets.
Twenty20 Cup history
2003
Warwickshire's first-ever game in Twenty20 cricket was against Somerset at Taunton, where the Bears defeated the Sabres by 19 runs. This result was followed by wins over Worcestershire (by 20 runs), Glamorgan (by 68 runs), and Northamptonshire (by 54 runs). Gloucestershire, who finished first in the division, were the only team to beat the Bears when they won by 8 wickets at Edgbaston. This meant that Warwickshire finished second in the Midlands, West and Wales Division behind Gloucestershire, and qualified for the finals day as the best runner-up.
The finals day was held on 19 July at Trent Bridge, Nottingham. Warwickshire met Leicestershire in their semi-final, who they defeated by 7 wickets, with Trevor Penney top-scoring for the Bears with 43 runs. Surrey claimed victory over Gloucestershire in their semi-final to set up a Surrey-Warwickshire final. Unfortunately, Warwickshire were unable to perform in the final and only scored 115 runs. Surrey managed to score 119 runs in just 11 overs and claimed victory.
2004
With expectations high at Edgbaston, Warwickshire entertained Somerset in the first clash of the 2004 season. The Bears secured victory by 7 wickets. After Warwickshire lost to Glamorgan (by 26 runs), things started to look bad for the Bears. Defeats against Worcestershire (by 3 wickets), and Northamptonshire (by 4 wickets), left the team in danger of not qualifying for the Quarter-Finals, but victory over Gloucestershire (by 2 wickets) on the last day, meant that Warwickshire qualified as one of the best third-placed team.