Some leagues live by the rope. Others graft for every run.
This Staturday we asked one simple question of all 33 ECB Premier Leagues: how much of your scoring comes in fours and sixes?
Every league has its stars. The question is how far above everyone else they stand.
This ‘Staturday’ we took every qualified batter across the 33 ECB Premier Leagues in 2026 (at least ten innings and 250 runs, 1,821 players in all) and asked one question of each league: how does its top five compare with its typical batter? We call it the gap at the top. It’s the top five’s average divided by the league’s median.
Lincolnshire leads, and it isn’t close. Its typical qualified batter averaged 23.4. Its top five averaged 62.1, more than two and a half times as much. Tayyab Tahir (92.08 for Woodhall Spa) and Priyanshu Khanduri (75.23 for Scunthorpe Town) were playing a different game from everyone around them.
The North East (2.4) comes next, where Mandeep Singh averaged 89.75 for Castle Eden. Lancashire, North Yorkshire & South Durham, East Anglian and Bradford follow.
At the other end, Kent, Middlesex, Southern and Essex all sit at around 1.65. Their best batters are good, but they aren’t out on their own. Middlesex has the tightest spread of all 33 leagues: nobody who qualified averaged more than 53.8.
Why does it matter? Because it’s the other half of competitive balance. A league table tells you how evenly results are shared. This tells you how evenly talent is shared. A big gap at the top means a few players are carrying a lot of weight. A small gap means depth: plenty of good batters, fewer superstars.
The two don’t have to agree, and that’s where it gets interesting. We’re building a competitiveness measure for every league’s table over six seasons. It uses the Noll–Scully ratio, which tests how far results stray from what pure chance would produce. When that’s done, we’ll put the two side by side. If Lincolnshire’s tables turn out lopsided too, the story writes itself: a few stars, a few dominant clubs. If its tables are close, individual brilliance isn’t turning into team dominance, and that’s a story as well.
One caution. Our data counts every match a player appears in as an innings, so a did-not-bat goes down as a duck. That pulls every average down a little. It’s why we compare each league with itself rather than lining up raw averages across leagues.
Star league or deep league: which is yours? The full table is below.
The gap at the top: all 33 leagues, 2026
- Qualified batters: at least 10 innings and 250 runs in 2026. That gives 1,821 batters across the 33 leagues, from 27 in Dorset to 77 in Birmingham & District.
- Gap at the top = the mean average of a league’s five highest qualified averages ÷ the median qualified average. Using the median rather than the mean stops one or two outliers moving the baseline.
- Spread (CV) = standard deviation of all qualified averages ÷ their mean, as a percentage. It tracks the gap at the top closely (correlation 0.85), so the two measures tell the same story.
The full table for all 33 leagues is below. Where does yours sit?
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| Rank | League | Qualified batters | Median average | Top-5 average | Gap at the top (x) | Spread (CV %) | Highest average |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lincolnshire | 38 | 23.4 | 62.1 | 2.66 | 53 | Tayyab Tahir, Woodhall Spa CC (92.08) |
| 2 | North East | 72 | 26.5 | 64.2 | 2.42 | 45 | Mandeep Singh, Castle Eden CC (89.75) |
| 3 | Lancashire | 57 | 25.5 | 60.2 | 2.36 | 45 | Chirag Khurana, Ramsbottom CC (77.85) |
| 4 | North Yorkshire & South Durham | 61 | 23.7 | 55.6 | 2.34 | 42 | Ryan Gibson, Marton CC, Yorks (63.18) |
| 5 | East Anglian | 74 | 28.7 | 65.9 | 2.30 | 45 | Sam Arthurton, Copdock & Old Ipswichian CC (91.56) |
| 5 | Bradford | 76 | 26.6 | 61.2 | 2.30 | 43 | Steven Bullen, New Farnley CC (72.18) |
| 7 | Nottinghamshire | 74 | 26.9 | 60.0 | 2.23 | 43 | Savin Perera, Cavaliers and Carrington CC (96.27) |
| 7 | North Staffs & South Cheshire | 59 | 23.3 | 51.9 | 2.23 | 41 | Bryce Parsons, Checkley CC (75.08) |
| 9 | Derbyshire | 64 | 27.7 | 60.8 | 2.20 | 41 | Ximus Du Plooy, Ockbrook & Borrowash CC (70.82) |
| 10 | Home Counties | 47 | 28.1 | 58.4 | 2.08 | 38 | Lloyd Sabin, Banbury CC (72.00) |
| 11 | Leicestershire & Rutland | 71 | 30.7 | 63.4 | 2.07 | 41 | Sam Evans, Leicester Ivanhoe CC (105.58) |
| 12 | Hertfordshire | 55 | 31.9 | 64.8 | 2.04 | 38 | Blake Nikitaras, Flitwick CC (81.40) |
| 13 | Birmingham & District | 77 | 29.5 | 60.0 | 2.03 | 39 | Viken Kedariya, Smethwick CC (83.14) |
| 14 | Yorkshire North | 64 | 26.4 | 52.9 | 2.01 | 39 | Akshay Chandran, Hull Zingari CC (61.76) |
| 15 | Dorset | 27 | 31.6 | 63.1 | 2.00 | 52 | Luke Webb, Wimborne CC (102.36) |
| 16 | Cheshire | 73 | 28.9 | 57.5 | 1.99 | 36 | Dan Newton, Lindow CC (77.13) |
| 17 | Liverpool & District | 59 | 26.2 | 51.9 | 1.98 | 39 | Ben Walkden, Newton-le-Willows CC (57.38) |
| 18 | Huddersfield | 67 | 26.8 | 52.7 | 1.97 | 37 | Abid Ali (pro), Hoylandswaine CC (56.25) |
| 18 | South Wales | 42 | 31.6 | 62.1 | 1.97 | 39 | Imran Butt, Ammanford CC (83.82) |
| 20 | North Wales | 51 | 31.5 | 61.2 | 1.94 | 42 | Mathew Ryan, St Asaph CC (74.00) |
| 21 | Greater Manchester | 48 | 23.1 | 44.5 | 1.93 | 35 | Ankit Kalsi, Egerton CC, Lancs (52.25) |
| 22 | West of England | 55 | 34.1 | 64.6 | 1.90 | 37 | Thomas Kelly, Dumbleton CC (99.63) |
| 23 | Northern | 40 | 27.7 | 52.0 | 1.88 | 37 | Gautam Waghela, Settle CC (54.89) |
| 23 | Surrey | 44 | 31.5 | 59.1 | 1.88 | 35 | Tom Cullen, East Molesey CC (71.50) |
| 25 | Devon | 39 | 27.2 | 50.4 | 1.85 | 34 | Seb Linnitt, Exeter CC (59.27) |
| 26 | Sussex | 45 | 33.6 | 61.3 | 1.82 | 35 | Matt Davies, Roffey CC (69.38) |
| 26 | Yorkshire Southern | 63 | 26.4 | 48.1 | 1.82 | 35 | Alex Grimes, Appleby Frodingham CC (52.65) |
| 28 | Cornwall | 43 | 27.9 | 50.6 | 1.81 | 34 | Mark Gribble, Werrington CC, Cornwall (68.18) |
| 29 | Northamptonshire | 47 | 29.5 | 50.2 | 1.70 | 34 | Jack Lees, Geddington CC (67.67) |
| 30 | Essex | 50 | 32.0 | 53.1 | 1.66 | 32 | Joe MacGregor, Colchester and East Essex CC (68.93) |
| 30 | Southern | 46 | 29.3 | 48.7 | 1.66 | 31 | Felix Organ, St Cross Symondians CC (73.88) |
| 32 | Middlesex | 50 | 28.9 | 47.9 | 1.65 | 30 | Matthew McGowan, Finchley CC (53.77) |
| 33 | Kent | 43 | 30.6 | 50.3 | 1.64 | 31 | Bradley Hope, Sevenoaks Vine CC (58.90) |
Check out all the TOP 500 Premier League Run Scorers in 2026 HERE!
