Liam Dawson was named a Wisden Cricketer of the Year for 2024. Alex Smith’s piece on Dawson originally appeared in the 2025 edition of Wisden Cricketer’s Almanack.
The Five Cricketers of the Year represent a tradition that dates back to 1889, making this the oldest individual award in cricket. The Five are picked by the editor, and the selection is based, primarily but not exclusively, on excellence in and/or influence on the previous English season. No one can be chosen more than once.
Outwardly, little had changed: his left-arm spin had the same action, and he placed the ball with the same accuracy; his right-handed batting drew on the same sound technique, and he played the same shots. Yet by the end of the 2024 season, Liam Dawson had not simply become one of the premier spinners in English cricket: with Ben Stokes injured for much of the summer, he had a claim to be the country’s premier all-rounder.
His numbers spoke for themselves. For the first time, Dawson reached 50 wickets in a season – in a damp year, only three, all seamers, squeaked past his 54. And he made 956 runs at 59, narrowly missing out on becoming the first since Will Gidman in 2011 to combine 50 and 1,000.
The purple patch had in fact begun the year before. Until then, Dawson’s first-class career, stretching back 16 seasons, had brought five five-fors and 11 centuries. In two summers – he had claimed 49 wickets and scored 840 runs in 2023 – he took nine five-fors and hit six centuries. In both years, he achieved the all-rounder’s dream of ten wickets and a hundred in the same match. The last English player to do so more than once was Stan Nichols for Essex in 1938. “I never expected to beat my 2023 season like I did,” says Dawson. “It was a special achievement.”
It all begged a question: why had he not added to his 20 international caps since November 2022? The answer lies in three phone calls the following autumn. In the first, from England selector Luke Wright, he learned that he had been selected for the World Cup in India; in the second, again from Wright, that there had been a U-turn. The third, in which he was sounded out for the 2023/24 Test series, also in India, was informed by the first two: he told Rob Key, managing director of the England team, that international cricket was no longer the be-all and end-all. Dawson was fed up carrying drinks – named in two World Cup squads, and travelling reserve in another, he had not played a game – and Key couldn’t guarantee it would be different this time. With a contract for the SA20 already signed, it was an easy decision. Dawson won the tournament with Sunrisers Eastern Cape; England lost 4-1.
“When I was younger, all I wanted to do was play for England, and that probably wasn’t so healthy,” he says. “I’m certainly not worried about it now. When you take something like that off your mind, it only helps your cricket.” His new priorities are winning a first Championship for Hampshire since 1973 – they finished second in 2024 – and picking up franchise deals.
There was another factor in his success. Adi Birrell, Hampshire’s innovative head coach, wanted the Rose Bowl to encourage run-scoring and spin bowling. Rather than providing respite for the quicks, Dawson became a weapon in his own right. “The pitches were a big reason I got a few wickets – but you’ve got to exploit the conditions.”
One of Dawson’s superpowers is an air of ordinariness. His bowling is built on repeatability rather than mystery or significant turn; his batting on picking the length early, and doggedness. But he had to work hard, especially on accuracy: he made his debut in 2007 (captained by Shane Warne) and, by the end of the 2011 season, had collected just 20 wickets at 48. With greater control, though, came greater reward. And with stronger batting at the top of the card, he could develop middle-order innings rather than halt collapses. Power-hitting work – largely to enhance his franchise profile – meant runs came more quickly. Fitness was a key part of the Birrell plan, fostering in Dawson a love of distance running. He now relishes long spells and, in the 2024 season, bowled 3,520 balls in all formats, more than anyone else. He was fitter, happier, more productive.
LIAM ANDREW DAWSON was born in Swindon on March 1, 1990, six months before the first Dawson victory at Lord’s: his father, Andy, was part of the Goatacre team who won the Village Cup (he made an unbeaten 12 after getting lost in the Pavilion on his way to bat, and opened the bowling). The younger Dawson has since collected four winners’ medals at Lord’s: three one-day trophies with Hampshire, and a World Cup.
He spent much of his childhood in the Goatacre nets, making his third-team debut aged seven: “Being around adults at that age helps you grow up quicker and tougher.” The family were all club stalwarts: mother Bev (“a calming influence, whatever the performance”) helped out with teas, and ferried him to the Rose Bowl twice a week, while younger brother Brad went on to play for Wiltshire.
Liam moved on to age-group cricket for Chippenham, where he shared lifts with James Vince, and then on to Hampshire, where he met Chris Wood. They have had a hand in every Hampshire success in the past 15 years, and there is a photograph of the three amigos happily brandishing their medals: seven in all. They were best men at each others’ weddings.
When he arrived at Hampshire, aged 14, Dawson was told he wasn’t going to be tall or fast enough to bowl pace, and that he should focus on his batting, or on spin. “I had a terrible action, but I landed the ball, and spun it.” His batting, meanwhile, took him into the first team and, in 2008, he became Hampshire’s youngest centurion. Seven years later, he collected 922 runs and 29 wickets, and England came knocking. In 2016, he made international debuts in all three formats, hitting an unbeaten 66 in his first Test, at Chennai, where India ran up 759-7. But he found fellow slow bowlers Moeen Ali and Adil Rashid difficult to dislodge: “I never expected to play – when I was involved, the England white-ball team had brilliant spinners.” Part of the victorious squad at two World Cups, he gave his 2019 medal to his son, Ralphie.
Come the end of the 2024 season, Dawson was on the golf course. Outwardly, little had changed. Only this time he sank his first hole-in-one. It felt like a theme.
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