The Johnners Trust has now closed after 30 years. Thank you to all our loyal supporters. We awarded more than £1million to help young cricketers in need of financial assistance and to promote the growth of Blind and VI cricket. Our legacy funds will be going to develop the new VI Cricket Project in 2026 in partnership with the ECB and Lord’s Taverners.

Many congratulations to the Hampshire and England spin-bowling all-rounder Liam Dawson (Johnners Scholar, 2006) for being named as one of the 2025 Wisden Five Cricketers of the Year!

The final Johnners Dinner took place in the Long Room at Lord’s on 4th November 2024 as we celebrated 30 years of the Johnners Trust with our friends and supporters. Thank you to our special guests, Jonathan Agnew, Alison Mitchell, David Gower, Ebony Rainford-Brent and Sir Tim Rice and to everyone who made it an evening to remember.

We are so thrilled that 20-year-old England off-spinner Shoaib Bashir (Johnners Scholar 2019) has taken 5 for 41 to win the second Test against the West Indies at Trent Bridge. He is now the youngest ever England bowler to take a five-wicket haul at home.

Thank you to everyone who attended the annual Johnners Trust Dinner in the Long Room at Lord’s on 6th November 2023 and helped to raise funds for the Johnners scholarships for talented young and VI cricketers. Special thanks to our MC Ian Irving, auctioneer Johnny Gould and our JT trustee, Alison Mitchell.

.

Former Johnners Scholar Tymal Mills is the top wicket-taker in The Hundred 2023 with 16 wickets! Closely followed by two more Johnners Scholars, Reece Topley (13), and Adil Rashid (11). Congratulations to all three of them from all at the Johnners Trust.

The Johnners Trust is very proud to announce that Surrey and England wicketkeeper/batter Ben Foakes (Johnners Scholar, 2009) has been named as one of Wisden’s five Cricketers of the Year for 2023.

We are delighted that Rehan Ahmed (Johnners Scholar, 2019) has become the youngest England male cricketer to play in all three formats of international cricket at 18 years 211 days! We hope that he goes on to break even more records in his future international cricket career.

We regret to announce that the annual Johnners Dinner on 7th November in the Long Room at Lord’s has been cancelled because of the national rail strike on that day, which means that many of our Johnners Trust supporters are no longer able to attend. We thank all those who had bought tickets and the dinner will take place as usual next year in November 2023.

Sensational bowling figures of six for 24 by Reece Topley (Johnners Scholar, 2010) in the 2nd ODI against India at Lord’s. The best bowling figures in England’s ODI history and Reece was also named the Player of the Match!