Nottinghamshire are four points off the top with two games left, and they have signed Mukesh Kumar
The defending County Championship winners sit second behind Somerset with two rounds to play, and have brought in an India seamer who was bowling in the Duleep Trophy final five days ago.
Sep 15, 2026
Nottinghamshire won the County Championship last September and have spent this season trying to hold onto it. With two rounds to play they are second, four points behind Somerset and one ahead of Warwickshire, and the club’s response to that squeeze is a 32-year-old India seamer who was bowling in Chennai five days ago.
Mukesh Kumar has signed for the final two Division One matches of Nottinghamshire’s season. It is his first stint in county cricket, and it lands on the two games that will settle where the title goes.
Five points cover three counties
Somerset lead on 189 points from 12 matches. Nottinghamshire have 185, Warwickshire 184. Nobody else is close: Sussex are fourth on 154, and that is after a 12-point deduction that followed their acceptance of an ECB financial support package.
The gap matters more than usual because of who is at the top of it. Somerset have never won the County Championship. Not in the Botham and Richards years, and not across six runner-up finishes between 2001 and 2019. Nottinghamshire, by contrast, ended a 15-year wait last year, sealing the 2025 title with bonus points at home to Warwickshire in the final round.
Nottinghamshire’s run-in starts at Hove, where they play Sussex from Tuesday. Then Yorkshire, fifth on 142, come to Trent Bridge on 24 September for the last round of the season.
What Mukesh gives them
The numbers are the reason. Mukesh has 233 first-class wickets at 21.79, with ten five-wicket hauls, and his best match figures of 10 for 50 came against Bihar in the Ranji Trophy in February 2024. An average under 22 across 61 first-class games is the record of a bowler who takes wickets rather than one who keeps an end quiet.
He has 26 India caps across the formats: three Tests, six ODIs and 17 T20Is. The last of the Tests was against England on 2 February 2024, and he has not played a Test since. That is part of why he was available in mid-September, and part of why the timing suits both sides.
Straight out of a final
Peter Moores, Nottinghamshire head coach since 2016, made the point himself. “We’re really excited to get Mukesh over at what is a crucial time of the season,” he said. “He comes straight off the back of a really competitive game in the Duleep Trophy Final.”
That final finished on 10 September in Chennai. East Zone piled up 708, with Ishan Kishan making 270, and bowled South Zone out for 336 to win the title on a first-innings lead of 372 runs. It was East Zone’s first Duleep Trophy in 13 years. Mukesh took 3 for 62 in that innings.
He is clear about what he wants from the next fortnight. “I am really pleased to sign for Nottinghamshire at an important time in the season,” he said. “I can’t wait to arrive in England and test myself in county cricket.” He added that coming to England is “always a good challenge”, and that he was excited by the chance to play for a new team in new conditions.
A short window, a big ask
Two matches is not much of a sample, and a bowler arriving cold into English September can take a session or two to work out what the ball is doing off the seam. Mukesh has bowled in England before, but as an India squad bowler, not as an overseas pro expected to carry a title challenge for eight days.
Nottinghamshire have not asked him to do it alone. What they have bought is depth at the end of a long summer, at the moment when seam attacks start to run out of legs. If Somerset slip once at either of their remaining fixtures, four points is the kind of gap that closes in an afternoon.