Player Profile
Josh Bohannon is fast becoming one of the brightest batting talents in England, and he has already been talked about for senior international honours. In early 2022, he was a serious contender for the Test tour of the Caribbean. Alas no, but he has been a regular for the England Lions. It surely won’t be long before he gets his Test call.
Ahead of the 2023 summer, for example, he toured Sri Lanka with the Lions and posted middle order scores of 42, 57, 54 and 34 not out in a pair of first-class draws with the SL A side.
He is on the verge of 3,000 career first-class runs - he is 73 away at time of writing. That haul includes six centuries in 53 appearances, with a brilliant best of 231 coming in the early season LV= Insurance County Championship win over Gloucestershire at Emirates Old Trafford.
He has made the number three spot his own in Championship cricket for the Red Rose.
Born in Bolton and a product of the Farnworth Social Circle club, Bohannon, who turns 26 in early April, first pulled on a Lancashire shirt at Under 13s level in 2010 and went on to represent the Under 14s, 15s and 17s.
In 2014, he helped the Under 17s win the one-day and Championship double alongside Haseeb Hameed - another Social Circle product - and fellow Boltonians Matt and Callum Parkinson.
Bohannon, who has also trained to be an Electrician in his spare time away from the game, debuted in all three formats for the Red Rose in 2018.
He is a batter who shows more poise than power, though it’s not as if he can’t pack a punch. He once scored a second-team T20 century as an opener and has fulfilled that role in the first team on occasions.
Bohannon provided one of the most memorable moments of the 2019 season when notching an emotional maiden first-class century against Derbyshire at Emirates Old Trafford in September.
Watched on by members of his family, Bohannon rewarded the faith of Dane Vilas and Glen Chapple in moving him up to number three by reaching a milestone he just about failed to achieve when stranded on 98 against Leicestershire earlier in the season.
In the Red Rose team that day was Australian overseas star Glenn Maxwell, with whom Josh had forged a close friendship during his short time at Old Trafford. Maxwell was as nervous as anyone else in the ground as his mate approached three figures.
It was the first of six Championship centuries to date, three of which came in 2022.
He totalled 805 first-class runs in the summer, a total only bettered the season before with 878 as Lancashire finished second in Division One and qualified for the Bob Willis Trophy final at Lord’s.
While he wasn’t a Blast regular in 2022, he was in the One-Day Cup as the county reached the final at Trent Bridge - only to lose against Kent.
Bohannon, a handy medium pace bowler and a gun fielder, won Lancashire’s breakthrough player of the year award in 2018 and the young player of the year the following summer.
You just get the feeling many more accolades will follow in the years to come. But, knowing Bohannon, the only silverware he will be bothered about are team titles.