Emilio Gay has become the first centurion of the 2026 County Championship season.
Lining up for Durham against Kent in a Division Two game, Gay brought up his 11th first-class hundred off 111 deliveries, pushing his Test selection case even further, with England in search of top-order prospects. He eventually fell for 128, hitting 22 boundaries in the process.
The 25-year-old walked out in the fourth over after the dismissal of opener Ben McKinney. He added 55 runs for the second wicket with captain Alex Lees, before the latter fell, followed by David Bedingham’s dismissal four overs later.
Match 2, Durham vs Kent
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Graham Clark (34) gave Gay company as the duo went about resurrecting the Durham innings, constructing a 104-run partnership. Gay was on 99 when Clark became Glenton Stuurman’s second wicket of the innings, and completed his hundred just two deliveries later.
Colin Ackermann couldn’t hold on for long and fell for a 31-ball six, bowled by Stuurman. Gay, too, followed 24 runs later, having scored 128 off 141 balls, with Durham at 235-6. At the time of writing, they were 240-6 with Ollie Robinson and Kasey Aldridge on the crease.
Emilio Gay was Durham's top scorer in 2025 County Championship season
Gay had scored 954 runs in the 2025 Division One season, and was Durham’s top scorer of the campaign as they suffered relegation. He had hit four hundreds and a fifty with a top score of 161. With a strong start to the 2026 Division Two campaign, he looks set to be among the top scorers for his side this year as well.
Gay has notably played three T20Is for Italy, all at the men's T20 World Cup Europe Region Final 2025, during which the Azzurri earned qualification for the 2026 T20 World Cup. He scored 63 runs for them in the three games at a strike-rate of 213.33, including a top score of 50 against Scotland.
England's Test top three have averaged 37.73 since the start of last year, which fell to 25.70 in the recent Ashes. Jacob Bethell was the only top England top-three batter to make a hundred on the tour, with just two more fifties shared between the other batters. Gay's opening day heroics, then, firmly makes him a contender for the role in the near future.
Also read: County Championship 2026: Wisden Writers' predictions for the upcoming season
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