27 January: Hobart Hurricanes win maiden BBL title
And then there were one. Following Mitch Owen’s glorious 108 from just 42 balls in front of a sold out Bellerive Oval, the Hobart Hurricanes became the seventh of the eight Big Bash League franchises to win the title.
In doing so, they also brought a trophy to the island state of Tasmania for the first time since the 2012/13 Sheffield Shield, and the losing captain from that game - James Hopes - was in head coach Jeff Vaughan’s dugout as an assistant when Owen single-handedly blasted away David Warner’s Sydney Thunder.
Owen made a potentially difficult target of 183 look a walk in the park as he and renowned finisher Matthew Wade (32* from 17) ran the target down early in the 15th over. It was one of many BBL innings that would propel Owen into the Australian white ball team and potential selection for the 2026 T20 World Cup squad.
Hobart’s WBBL team would then go on to replicate the feat by winning their first trophy in December of 2025 thanks in part to South African Lizelle Lee winding back the clock with 77 not out.
23 February: A reminder of what India-Pakistan cricket can and should be
Indo-Pakistani relations have taken a sad turn for the worse throughout the year with a cross-border skirmish seeing the abandonment of an IPL game in Dharamsala and the temporary postponement of the Pakistan Super League in the middle of May.
The relationship between India and Pakistan’s cricket teams had stood the test of time for the majority of the 21st century to date, at least until the military conflict that prompted India T20I captain Suryakumar Yadav to refuse handshakes with his Pakistan counterpart at the Asia Cup and the team refuse to accept the trophy from Asian Cricket Council chief and Pakistan interior minister Mohsin Naqvi.
Earlier in the year, we saw the best of India-Pakistan cricket on the field at the ICC Champions Trophy in Dubai.
India had not received a security clearance to travel to the tournament and were therefore based in Dubai for its entirety, but there were cordial scenes both on the field and in the stands with captains Rohit Sharma and Babar Azam exchanging smiles and jokes during the coin toss and supporters from both nations mingling together in the stands of the Dubai International Cricket Stadium.
We also saw some of the best of Virat Kohli as he blew Pakistan away with the 51st of his 53 ODI centuries, thus equalling Sachin Tendulkar’s record of 23 50+ scores at ICC ODI events with 100 not out from 111 balls (he would then overtake Sachin with 84 against Australia nine days later).
We hope to one day at least see Indian and Pakistani professional cricketers enjoying one anothers’ company, free of politics, in the near future if not by the T20 World Cup of 2026.
23 April: Zimbabwe’s first Test win in more than four years
Following the wretched Covid pandemic and multiple ICC membership suspensions due to government interference and other administrative issues, Zimbabwe looked to have sorted things out ahead of their busiest Test year since 2001 in terms of matches played.
They went from four Tests played across 2023 and 2024 to ten in 2025, highlighted by their first Test in England in 25 years, and after two competitive losses at home to Afghanistan and Ireland earlier in the year, ended a four-year drought with their first win in Bangladesh since 2018.
Nine match wickets to Blessing Muzarabani, who finished 2025 with more Test wickets (42) than anyone bar Mitchell Starc (55) and Mohammed Siraj (43), and twin half-centuries for rising star Brian Bennett inspired Zimbabwe to a three-wicket win.
They ended their busy Test year with an innings victory over Afghanistan where Ben Curran, brother of Sam and Tom, announced himself with his maiden Test century.
3 June: The RCB title many thought may never come
It seemed like a curse that could never be lifted.
Royal Challengers Bengaluru remained one of the IPL’s most popular franchises throughout 17 years without a single title, thanks mostly to the loyalty of cricket legend Virat Kohli, who made just 1 in the tournament’s inaugural match when Brendan McCullum blasted 13 sixes and 158 not out.
Virat and his millions of RCB followers were rewarded for their indefatigable patience and support on the first weekend of June when RCB, who finished second in the league stage with nine wins, met first-placed Punjab Kings and held on for a narrow six-run victory.
Fittingly it was Kohli himself who top scored in RCB’s innings (190/9) with 43 as part of a fantastic team effort that was matched with the ball during the run chase. Josh Hazlewood, IPL veterans Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Krunal Pandya, Yash Dayal and even Romario Shepherd all stifled Punjab throughout the powerplay and middle overs to leave Punjab needing 42 from the final two overs. Shashank Singh got them close, but not over the line.
14 June: South Africa finally shirks the ‘chokers’ tag
2025 appears to be the year of ending droughts, upon reflection. Not just Hobart Hurricanes, Zimbabwe or the India women’s team (as we’ll get to shortly), but South Africa collected their first honours since the 1998 Champions Trophy and Commonwealth Games titles when they were crowned World Test Champions at Lord’s.
Australia went into the match as narrow favourites, having just won 3-1 at home to India and 2-0 away to Sri Lanka in the several months leading into the final, whilst the Proteas - unwillingly famous for stumbling at the final one or two blocks of an ICC tournament - were on a seven-game winning streak against four different nations.
The Proteas had only once played Australia in a Test series in the last seven years - losing a three-game series 2-0 in Australia during 2022/23 - and had been criticised earlier in the WTC cycle for sending a third-string squad to a tour of New Zealand that clashed with their domestic SA20 tournament.
Australia took a 74-run first innings lead into the second day after Pat Cummins destroyed them with 6-28, but Kagiso Rabada struck back with four second innings scalps (after five in the first) to give South Africa a difficult chase of 282 on a Lord’s pitch that, following a hectic 28 wickets in the first two days, began to flatten out nicely on day three.
The Aussies had no answers for Aiden Markram (136) or inspirational captain Temba Bavuma (66) as two of the great leaders of modern-day South African cricket took the opportunity before them with both hands.
9 July: Mamma mia! We’re going to Eden Gardens!
Italy in a cricket World Cup?! Anyone without a deep and intimate knowledge of associate cricket would have thought such a thing was unimaginable, even for a T20 World Cup that has been expanded from 20 participants in 2024 to 24 in 2026.
That opened up an additional spot for a European regional qualifier, and with Ireland already having automatically qualified for the 2026 edition through their ICC T20I ranking, there were not expected to be any threats to Scotland or the Netherlands for the two regional qualification positions.
Step forward, the Azzurri of Italy. The rank no. 28 nation had steamrolled their way through the sub-regional European qualifier undefeated and were viewed as the most likely - but still overall a very unlikely - challenger to the Dutch and Scottish favourites.
Italy went all guns blazing into the qualifier, having recruited former Australian international Joe Burns, Australian BBL representatives Ben and Harry Manenti and England-born county cricketer Emilio Gay into their ranks. County mainstay Gareth Berg led the team through the early stages of qualification before handing the captaincy to Joe Burns, whilst they had also enjoyed the services of Derbyshire’s Wayne Madsen.
Madsen missed the final qualifying tournament because of club duties, but his teammates pipped Scotland by 12 runs (167 to 155) thanks to 38 runs and 5-31 from Harry Manenti in a result that ultimately saw them get to their maiden World Cup at Scotland’s expense.
Burns has not been selected for the T20 World Cup squad after falling out with the board over his captaincy, but Madsen will be back to lead the team out onto the hallowed turf of Eden Gardens as they face Italy in a matchup usually reserved for football and rugby World Cups.
14 July: Starc and Boland rout West Indies for 27
The yo-yo that is West Indies cricket plummeted again in the middle of the year as, within 18 months of securing 1-1 series draws against Australia (away), Bangladesh (home) and Pakistan (away), they were demolished 3-0 by eventual WTC runners-up Australia.
They suffered one of their darkest days in history at Sabina Park in Jamaica in what was meant to be a momentous occasion for Jamaica as it commemorated the installation of new floodlights with a day-night Test against the masters of pink ball cricket.
Set a tough but not impossible target of 204 after making 143 in their first innings, the West Indies XI lasted only 14.3 overs as Mitchell Starc tore through the top order with 6 for 9 before Scott Boland finished things off with a hat-trick in just a two-over spell.
4 August: Siraj snatches an epic series draw in London
One of India’s most stunning wins in the United Kingdom took place at The Oval when they came back from 2-1 down after three games to snatch a 2-2 series draw and retain the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy that was regained on home soil in early 2021.
Brendon McCullum’s England have been no strangers to successful run chases in the 290s and beyond - there was one of 373/5 in the opening game of this series as well as 378/3, 299/5 and 296/3 against New Zealand in 2022 - so there were few surprises to see them in cruise control on Day 5 at The Oval.
A 3-1 series victory was all but certain when they were at 301/3 pursuing 374, off the back of centuries from both Joe Root (105) and Harry Brook (111) who put on a 195-run partnership, the end of which prompted a dramatic slide.
The lion-hearted Mohammed Siraj, India’s only fast bowler to appear in all five Tests, shredded England’s middle and lower order after breaking the partnership and, along with Prasidh Krishna in his third game of the series, the pair picked off six wickets between them (three each) for just 35 runs.
One of the most entertaining Test series in recent memory ended in unforgettable fashion as a one-armed Chris Woakes, with a dislocated shoulder tucked inside his jumper and a sling, struggled to even jog between the wickets as he did his darndest to occupy the non-strikers end whilst Gus Atkinson, Test centurion against Sri Lanka, tried to single-handedly pick off the 17 runs needed by the final partnership.
After ten, he was bowled by a yorker on off-stump that prompted an incredible celebration from an Indian side celebrating the country’s narrowest victory by runs.
25 September: Peter Moores ends another county drought
Not long after Peter Moores signed a three-year contract extension as head coach of Nottinghamshire, the 63-year-old ended a 15-year County Championship title drought and ended Surrey’s long-standing dominance, adding to his own titles won with Sussex (2003, 2006) and Lancashire (2011).
Lancs had to wait 77 years between drinks, a fair bit longer than the one for Notts on this occasion, but their win over Surrey in the penultimate round was an emphatic statement that there was a new king in town.
Haseeb Hameed’s fourth century of the Championship and a nerveless 83 from South African wicketkeeper Kyle Verreynne got Notts the two batting bonus points they needed in the last game to prevent Surrey from overtaking them, and the next day they put the icing on the cake with their seventh win of the season, finishing 16 points clear.
Moores became the first and only man to win the Championship with three different counties, etching his name into county cricket folklore.
2 November: India’s girls finally reach the pinnacle
It’s truly incredible that it took India’s women’s cricket team so long to win a major trophy after 50 years of heartbreak, but the long wait finally came to an end at the DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai.
Having reached the last four on four previous occasions in the 50-over World Cup and five times out of nine in the T20 format, India could have been forgiven for feeling a little sheepish about their chances in the semi-finals this time around, particularly after they scraped into the semi-finals with three wins and three losses from their seven group stage matches.
That included failing to defend 251 against South Africa and 330 against Australia, the two teams they would conquer in the knockout stage courtesy of 127* from Jemimah Rodrigues in the semi-final and a mesmerising 5-39 from Deepti Sharma in the final.
The words on Harmanpreet Kaur’s t-shirt when she posed with the World Cup trophy, “cricket is a gentleman’s everyone’s game”, is indicative of the turning point that women’s cricket has taken in India thanks to their World Cup triumph and the success of the newly formed Women’s Premier League (WPL), their answer to the IPL.
22 November: ‘Travball’ ends England’s dreams in a blink
In the now infamous words of former player and current broadcaster Stuart Broad, the best English side since 2010/11 came to Australia to face the worst Aussie team since 2010/11 in what he and many of his fellow pundits had considered to be England's best chance of reclaiming the Ashes down under.
England had not won a single match in Australia since Andrew Strauss' class of 2011, let alone a series, and the revolutionary style of aggressive cricket that had seen Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes win ten of their first 11 games in charge of the Test team appeared set to present the Aussies with a challenge they had rarely faced on home soil in recent years.
Australia went into the series looking a bit vulnerable: they were without a reliable opening partnership. There were several out-of-form players such as Usman Khawaja and Marnus Labuschagne. Pat Cummins was to miss at least the first two matches with injury, and Josh Hazlewood soon followed.
Travis Head was shoehorned into the top of the order alongside debutant Jake Weatherald for the second innings of the first game in Perth, after Marnus Labuschagne accompanied Weatherald for the first, and he quickly put pay to England's Ashes hopes, setting the tone for the remainder of the first three matches with a devastating 69-ball century.
In a two-day Perth Test which saw neither team score more than 172 across the first three innings of the game, Australia romped to a chase of 205 with eight wickets in hand thanks to 'Travball'.