Since 2008, Wisden, English cricket’s annual almanack and home to various eminent awards, has chosen a Schools Cricketer of the Year.
It is an eclectic mix of names. The first winner, Jonny Bairstow, won exactly 100 Test caps and will go down in folklore. The next, James Taylor, had his hugely promising career brutally stopped in its tracks by health issues. A future England captain in Jos Buttler came next.
Since the pre-eminent first three winners, there have been solid county pros like Tom Abell, a Somerset stalwart who became club captain at just 23; Kent captain Daniel Bell-Drummond and Tom Kohler-Cadmore, who has made a huge impression on the T20 franchise circuit, recording 234 T20 appearances in total.
More recently, winners have been stars of tomorrow like Kent’s Tawanda Muyeye as well as Jacob Bethell, who is already representing England.
Winning the award is no guarantee of success in the professional game, however. Others just did not make it in cricket.
Take Teddie Casterton, for example. He never played first-class cricket and is now a teacher who has also co-authored a collection of short stories on the human fascination with death, rather than being worried about hearing the death rattle.
Or Will Vanderspar, who now works for JP Morgan despite a prolific season for Eton College in 2011 that could have set him on the path to the professional game.
A look back at the list (in full here) is instructive in two ways, though. Firstly, only one out-and-out bowler has won the award in Ben Waring in 2016. The second, in keeping with the cricketing times, is that the names on the list have been chosen almost exclusively for their performances at fee-paying schools.
The sole exception is Casterton, who starred for Royal Grammar School, High Wycombe in 2018. Some joined their private schools on scholarships for sixth form, and Wisden does encourage state schools to inform them of their results.
But these are the establishments turning out teams regularly, so that is where Wisden finds its winners and counties, and therefore England, find so many of their players.
The award has been won only by boys so far, although a girl could win it in theory; the growth of girls’ cricket in schools is reflected by 2025 being the first that Wisden has a separate girls schools section.
Aryaman Varma, another Etonian, claimed the award this year and is perhaps the most interesting winner yet.
Varma collected the award at the lavish Wisden dinner last Wednesday with four former Test captains in the Long Room at Lord’s, where he represented his school against Harrow three times. In all, last summer, he took 51 wickets and scored handy, aggressive runs at the top of the order while captaining the team.
Varma is fascinating, but not because he is the first winner of Asian background – he was born in London but has family from Delhi and spent time growing up in Mumbai – or because he is a leg-spinning all-rounder, but because of the career path that lies ahead of him.
Varma has played for both Middlesex – where his older brother Arnav, a fast bowler whose career was ended by back injuries, also played – and Surrey at age-group level, as well as for Kent’s second XI. But, turning 19 this summer, Varma is not currently attached to a county.
He is, however, attached to a franchise. He was called up as a replacement player by the Dubai Capitals for this year’s ILT20 in the UAE. He also popped home from India for the Wisden dinner, where he is a net bowler for Delhi Capitals and apprentice of Kuldeep Yadav, arguably the best all-format wrist-spinner.
Varma has been working with the Capitals franchise for a few years. He was training in Dubai with coaches from his club, Hampstead (the IPL was moved to the UAE due to Covid then) when he was spotted by an assistant coach and asked to bowl at the team. He kept getting called back, and was then asked to do the same job this year by Dubai Capitals, the sister team. When Australian batsman Jake Fraser-McGurk was ruled out of the tournament, he was brought into the squad officially.
“Kuldeep bhai is a mentor to me.” 💙❤️
From being a net bowler with the team to learning under Kuldeep’s guidance, Aryaman’s journey has been nothing short of inspiring 🥹
Congratulations on being named Wisden Schools Cricketer of the Year 2025! 👏 pic.twitter.com/WoGTzAhVVC
— Delhi Capitals (@DelhiCapitals) April 24, 2025
This is not totally unusual in the IPL. Varun Chakravarthy, who so confused England’s batsmen on their tour of India in January, got his break having been a net bowler.
As a result, Varma has shared a changing room with and bowled at a long list of mighty fine players, including David Warner, Rishabh Pant and KL Rahul.
“When I started I was so young, and in awe of these guys,” he says. “I’m in my third year doing it now. I’ve improved a lot.
“I’m a bowling all-rounder, an aggressive leggie. I like to bowl at stumps, try to turn the ball. I’m also an aggressive batter. I had a late growth spurt, did more exercise and that has massively helped. At first it was ‘wow’ bowling to these guys – now I am in the challenge, competing with them, trying to give them good practice.”
He is one of a handful of net bowlers who DC take around India to every game at the tournament. “We are on the same flight, and you feel part of the team and valued,” he says. “And yeah, we get a lot of merch. My family is completely cricket mad, so they are very happy about that.”
It is as much who Varma is bowling with as who he is bowling at that is helping his development. This year, Capitals are captained by Axar Patel and have Kuldeep in their ranks.
“I bowl in the same net with Kuldeep, bowling alternate balls. Kuldeep has been a mentor from the very beginning. He has taught me so many different tricks. He’s taught me about drift, how he uses the crease and bowls close to the umpire, releasing the ball close to the stumps, and how to change my angles,” he explains.
Kuldeep’s advice has been: play, play, play. And Varma wants to do just that as he has red-ball ambitions, too, even if he acknowledges that “leg-spinners often get channelled towards white-ball cricket”.
“When I come home this summer I will be taking every opportunity I can get. I have some trials lined up with counties, and hopefully opportunities come from them. I’d love to play in the Blast, Hundred, the Championship.”
Varma has joined a list of, largely, prestigious names – but what is next is as difficult to predict as any of his predecessors.
What happened to the Wisden winners
2008: Jonny Bairstow (St Peter’s, York)
Scored 654 runs at 218, including three centuries
A magnificent all-round sportsman at schoolboy level, who went on to win 100 Test caps for England, and play a huge role in the 2019 World Cup win.
2009: James Taylor (Shrewsbury)
Scored 898 runs at an average of 179.6
A very promising international career was stopped in its tracks by a cruel illness aged 26, in 2016. Was an England selector, now a coach at his first county, Leicestershire.
2010: Jos Buttler (King’s Taunton)
Scored 554 runs at better than a run a ball
A nearly man across his 57 Tests, but a global white-ball great, having won both the ODI and T20 World Cups, the latter as captain, and dominated the franchise scene.
2011: Will Vanderspar (Eton)
Scored 1,286 runs, more than anyone else on the schools circuit
Played second-team cricket for Middlesex, Surrey, Sussex and Glamorgan, as well as first-class for MCC, but never appeared at the top level. Now works for JP Morgan.
2012: Daniel Bell-Drummond (Millfield)
Scored 801 runs, including four centuries
Kent’s captain and, at 31, a widely-respected figure in the domestic game. Never quite made it to international level, but has done excellent work with the cricket charity Platform in inner London.
2013: Tom Abell (Taunton School)
Scored seven centuries in 11 innings, also took 19 wickets
Somerset stalwart who was club captain at just 23. Is in demand on the franchise circuit and came close to an England debut in 2023, only to suffer an ill-timed injury.
2014: Tom Kohler-Cadmore (Malvern)
Scored 1,409 runs, including three scores over 150
Won on the back of an extraordinary run glut at Malvern, and has since made a huge impression on the T20 franchise circuit.
2015: Dylan Budge (Woodhouse Grove)
Scored 731 runs at 121
Scotland all-rounder who made his ODI debut in famous win over England in 2018 but last played for his country in 2022 and is now a photographer and student.
2016: Ben Waring (Felsted)
Took 68 wickets at 9.2
Bizarrely, the only specialist bowler to have won the award. Left-arm spinner Waring was in the Essex system and still represents Hertfordshire.
2017: AJ Woodland (St Edward’s, Oxford)
Scored more than 1,200 runs opening the batting
Played first-class cricket at Cardiff University and represented Buckinghamshire. Now works in recruitment in Dubai.
2018: Teddie Casterton (RGS, High Wycombe)
Scored 1,423 runs from 21 innings
The only player to win the award for his performances at a non-fee-paying school. Now a teacher, who co-authored a collection of short stories on the human fascination with death.
2019: Nathan Tilley (Reed’s)
Averaged 139, with six centuries
Represented Surrey seconds alongside a host of stars, and still plays for Weybridge in the Surrey Championship.
2020: Tawanda Muyeye (Eastbourne)
Scored more than 1,000 runs, and recognised for his off-spin
From Zimbabwe, and joined Eastbourne on a scholarship having come to the UK as an asylum seeker as his mother supported the opposition party. Now finding his feet as a classy batsman across formats for Kent.
2022: Jacob Bethell (Rugby)
654 runs in seven innings
Made his England debut in all three formats last year, including as a Test No 3. At the IPL with Royal Challengers Bengaluru, and has the world at his feet.
2023: Oliver Cox (Malvern)
Scored 1,392 runs at nearly 70 with 3 centuries
Left Worcestershire last summer to pursue a career with Canada, where he was born, while completing his studies at Exeter University.
2024: Ollie Sykes (Tonbridge)
Scored 935 runs and took 30 wickets
Left-handed batsman and off-spinner who is on the fringes of Surrey’s first team in red- and white-ball cricket. Very highly regarded at the club.
Since 2008, Wisden, English cricket’s annual almanack and home to various eminent awards, has chosen a Schools Cricketer of the Year.
It is an eclectic mix of names. The first winner, Jonny Bairstow, won exactly 100 Test caps and will go down in folklore. The next, James Taylor, had his hugely promising career brutally stopped in its tracks by health issues. A future England captain in Jos Buttler came next.
Since the pre-eminent first three winners, there have been solid county pros like Tom Abell, a Somerset stalwart who became club captain at just 23; Kent captain Daniel Bell-Drummond and Tom Kohler-Cadmore, who has made a huge impression on the T20 franchise circuit, recording 234 T20 appearances in total.
More recently, winners have been stars of tomorrow like Kent’s Tawanda Muyeye as well as Jacob Bethell, who is already representing England.
Winning the award is no guarantee of success in the professional game, however. Others just did not make it in cricket.
Take Teddie Casterton, for example. He never played first-class cricket and is now a teacher who has also co-authored a collection of short stories on the human fascination with death, rather than being worried about hearing the death rattle.
Or Will Vanderspar, who now works for JP Morgan despite a prolific season for Eton College in 2011 that could have set him on the path to the professional game.
A look back at the list (in full here) is instructive in two ways, though. Firstly, only one out-and-out bowler has won the award in Ben Waring in 2016. The second, in keeping with the cricketing times, is that the names on the list have been chosen almost exclusively for their performances at fee-paying schools.
The sole exception is Casterton, who starred for Royal Grammar School, High Wycombe in 2018. Some joined their private schools on scholarships for sixth form, and Wisden does encourage state schools to inform them of their results.
But these are the establishments turning out teams regularly, so that is where Wisden finds its winners and counties, and therefore England, find so many of their players.
The award has been won only by boys so far, although a girl could win it in theory; the growth of girls’ cricket in schools is reflected by 2025 being the first that Wisden has a separate girls schools section.
Aryaman Varma, another Etonian, claimed the award this year and is perhaps the most interesting winner yet.
Varma collected the award at the lavish Wisden dinner last Wednesday with four former Test captains in the Long Room at Lord’s, where he represented his school against Harrow three times. In all, last summer, he took 51 wickets and scored handy, aggressive runs at the top of the order while captaining the team.
Varma is fascinating, but not because he is the first winner of Asian background – he was born in London but has family from Delhi and spent time growing up in Mumbai – or because he is a leg-spinning all-rounder, but because of the career path that lies ahead of him.
Varma has played for both Middlesex – where his older brother Arnav, a fast bowler whose career was ended by back injuries, also played – and Surrey at age-group level, as well as for Kent’s second XI. But, turning 19 this summer, Varma is not currently attached to a county.
He is, however, attached to a franchise. He was called up as a replacement player by the Dubai Capitals for this year’s ILT20 in the UAE. He also popped home from India for the Wisden dinner, where he is a net bowler for Delhi Capitals and apprentice of Kuldeep Yadav, arguably the best all-format wrist-spinner.
Varma has been working with the Capitals franchise for a few years. He was training in Dubai with coaches from his club, Hampstead (the IPL was moved to the UAE due to Covid then) when he was spotted by an assistant coach and asked to bowl at the team. He kept getting called back, and was then asked to do the same job this year by Dubai Capitals, the sister team. When Australian batsman Jake Fraser-McGurk was ruled out of the tournament, he was brought into the squad officially.
“Kuldeep bhai is a mentor to me.” 💙❤️
From being a net bowler with the team to learning under Kuldeep’s guidance, Aryaman’s journey has been nothing short of inspiring 🥹
Congratulations on being named Wisden Schools Cricketer of the Year 2025! 👏 pic.twitter.com/WoGTzAhVVC
— Delhi Capitals (@DelhiCapitals) April 24, 2025
This is not totally unusual in the IPL. Varun Chakravarthy, who so confused England’s batsmen on their tour of India in January, got his break having been a net bowler.
As a result, Varma has shared a changing room with and bowled at a long list of mighty fine players, including David Warner, Rishabh Pant and KL Rahul.
“When I started I was so young, and in awe of these guys,” he says. “I’m in my third year doing it now. I’ve improved a lot.
“I’m a bowling all-rounder, an aggressive leggie. I like to bowl at stumps, try to turn the ball. I’m also an aggressive batter. I had a late growth spurt, did more exercise and that has massively helped. At first it was ‘wow’ bowling to these guys – now I am in the challenge, competing with them, trying to give them good practice.”
He is one of a handful of net bowlers who DC take around India to every game at the tournament. “We are on the same flight, and you feel part of the team and valued,” he says. “And yeah, we get a lot of merch. My family is completely cricket mad, so they are very happy about that.”
It is as much who Varma is bowling with as who he is bowling at that is helping his development. This year, Capitals are captained by Axar Patel and have Kuldeep in their ranks.
“I bowl in the same net with Kuldeep, bowling alternate balls. Kuldeep has been a mentor from the very beginning. He has taught me so many different tricks. He’s taught me about drift, how he uses the crease and bowls close to the umpire, releasing the ball close to the stumps, and how to change my angles,” he explains.
Kuldeep’s advice has been: play, play, play. And Varma wants to do just that as he has red-ball ambitions, too, even if he acknowledges that “leg-spinners often get channelled towards white-ball cricket”.
“When I come home this summer I will be taking every opportunity I can get. I have some trials lined up with counties, and hopefully opportunities come from them. I’d love to play in the Blast, Hundred, the Championship.”
Varma has joined a list of, largely, prestigious names – but what is next is as difficult to predict as any of his predecessors.
What happened to the Wisden winners
2008: Jonny Bairstow (St Peter’s, York)
Scored 654 runs at 218, including three centuries
A magnificent all-round sportsman at schoolboy level, who went on to win 100 Test caps for England, and play a huge role in the 2019 World Cup win.
2009: James Taylor (Shrewsbury)
Scored 898 runs at an average of 179.6
A very promising international career was stopped in its tracks by a cruel illness aged 26, in 2016. Was an England selector, now a coach at his first county, Leicestershire.
2010: Jos Buttler (King’s Taunton)
Scored 554 runs at better than a run a ball
A nearly man across his 57 Tests, but a global white-ball great, having won both the ODI and T20 World Cups, the latter as captain, and dominated the franchise scene.
2011: Will Vanderspar (Eton)
Scored 1,286 runs, more than anyone else on the schools circuit
Played second-team cricket for Middlesex, Surrey, Sussex and Glamorgan, as well as first-class for MCC, but never appeared at the top level. Now works for JP Morgan.
2012: Daniel Bell-Drummond (Millfield)
Scored 801 runs, including four centuries
Kent’s captain and, at 31, a widely-respected figure in the domestic game. Never quite made it to international level, but has done excellent work with the cricket charity Platform in inner London.
2013: Tom Abell (Taunton School)
Scored seven centuries in 11 innings, also took 19 wickets
Somerset stalwart who was club captain at just 23. Is in demand on the franchise circuit and came close to an England debut in 2023, only to suffer an ill-timed injury.
2014: Tom Kohler-Cadmore (Malvern)
Scored 1,409 runs, including three scores over 150
Won on the back of an extraordinary run glut at Malvern, and has since made a huge impression on the T20 franchise circuit.
2015: Dylan Budge (Woodhouse Grove)
Scored 731 runs at 121
Scotland all-rounder who made his ODI debut in famous win over England in 2018 but last played for his country in 2022 and is now a photographer and student.
2016: Ben Waring (Felsted)
Took 68 wickets at 9.2
Bizarrely, the only specialist bowler to have won the award. Left-arm spinner Waring was in the Essex system and still represents Hertfordshire.
2017: AJ Woodland (St Edward’s, Oxford)
Scored more than 1,200 runs opening the batting
Played first-class cricket at Cardiff University and represented Buckinghamshire. Now works in recruitment in Dubai.
2018: Teddie Casterton (RGS, High Wycombe)
Scored 1,423 runs from 21 innings
The only player to win the award for his performances at a non-fee-paying school. Now a teacher, who co-authored a collection of short stories on the human fascination with death.
2019: Nathan Tilley (Reed’s)
Averaged 139, with six centuries
Represented Surrey seconds alongside a host of stars, and still plays for Weybridge in the Surrey Championship.
2020: Tawanda Muyeye (Eastbourne)
Scored more than 1,000 runs, and recognised for his off-spin
From Zimbabwe, and joined Eastbourne on a scholarship having come to the UK as an asylum seeker as his mother supported the opposition party. Now finding his feet as a classy batsman across formats for Kent.
2022: Jacob Bethell (Rugby)
654 runs in seven innings
Made his England debut in all three formats last year, including as a Test No 3. At the IPL with Royal Challengers Bengaluru, and has the world at his feet.
2023: Oliver Cox (Malvern)
Scored 1,392 runs at nearly 70 with 3 centuries
Left Worcestershire last summer to pursue a career with Canada, where he was born, while completing his studies at Exeter University.
2024: Ollie Sykes (Tonbridge)
Scored 935 runs and took 30 wickets
Left-handed batsman and off-spinner who is on the fringes of Surrey’s first team in red- and white-ball cricket. Very highly regarded at the club.
