Player Profile

Fledgling left-arm spinner Charlie Barnard made his first-team debut for the Red Rose county in 2024, catching the eye with eight wickets in seven appearances in the Metro Bank One-Day Cup, including a best of 3-47.

That came in a pulsating three-run win over Worcestershire at Emirates Old Trafford at the end of a difficult campaign for the team.

Defending a 238-target, Barnard excelled through the middle of the innings to put the skids under the Pears, removing their captain Jake Libby and former Red Rose batter Rob Jones. 

Having removed Ethan Brookes to leave the visitors at 90-4, they did fight back to set up a tense finish. Ultimately, and thankfully, Barnard’s intervention was key and contributed to a victory. 

Less than a week earlier, and still in his teens, the Tameside twirler had signed his maiden professional contract with Lancashire.

And his progression continues at pace. 

In 2025, he claimed 10 wickets in eight competitive white-ball games, including career bests of 3-23 and 4-56 in T20 and List A cricket respectively. 

The first came in a home Vitality Blast win over Nottinghamshire at Emirates Old Trafford in May. He removed Australian international pair Moises Henriques and Daniel Sams. It was his T20 debut. The latter came in a thrilling, high-scoring one-wicket One-Day Cup defeat at Sussex at Hove. 

Heading into the 2026 summer, 21-year-old Barnard will no doubt be targeting a breakthrough into the Rothesay County Championship team as well. 

If he can produce some early-season form for the second team, he will have a great chance. He struck 49 times for them last summer. 

Barnard was born in Ashton-Under-Lyne and played age-group cricket for both Cheshire and Lancashire. He is a product of the famed Red Rose Academy. 

Barnard has played club cricket for Newton, Alderley Edge and, at present, Hyde. 

He represented the England Under 19s at the 50-over World Cup in South Africa in early 2024 and has played senior National Counties cricket for Cheshire in 2022-2024. 

For the Under 19s, he claimed 15 wickets in 11 appearances at home and abroad in 2023 and 2024.

He debuted for Lancashire’s twos in a June 2022 Second XI Championship clash with Warwickshire at Chester, claiming two wickets in each innings of a defeat. 

Just short of a couple of months later, in an Under 18s three-day Championship win against Derbyshire, he took 12 wickets. That included remarkable figures in the second innings of 18-9-22-8.

A memorable period in his career continued. 

At the end of that summer, he returned match figures of 10-133 in a Second XI Championship defeat against Yorkshire at Blackpool. 

His first-innings figures of 6-42 remain his best at that level despite him claiming second-team six-fors in 2024 and 2025.