T20 Blast Winners & Runners Up List From 2003 to 2026

Most “T20 Blast winners list” pages give you a table and move on. This one goes further: it ranks every final by drama, shows you which counties are still chasing their first trophy, and breaks the tournament’s 23 seasons into eras so you can actually see how English T20 cricket evolved, not just who lifted the trophy.

Somerset are the reigning champions, beating Hampshire by 6 wickets at Edgbaston in 2025 to claim their third title. They now share the all-time record with Leicestershire and Hampshire.

But the bigger story of the T20 Blast isn’t any one team, it’s that 13 different counties have won in 23 years, and nobody has ever defended the title back-to-back.

Full T20 Blast Winners List (2003–2026)

Here’s the complete record of every champion, runner-up, and final result since the tournament began as the Twenty20 Cup in 2003.

That’s the reference table everyone wants. Now here’s the angle nobody else covers.

Finals Ranked From Nail-Biter to Total Mismatch

Not all trophies are won the same way. Some finals went to the last ball; others were over by the tenth over. Ranking them by margin tells you which years actually delivered drama.

The 5 Tightest Finals Ever

• 2022 — Hampshire beat Lancashire by 1 run. The closest final in T20 Blast history. Lancashire needed a single off the last ball and couldn’t get it.
• 2008 — Middlesex beat Kent by 3 runs. Owais Shah’s 75 just about held up against a Kent chase that fell agonizingly short.
• 2014 — Birmingham Bears beat Lancashire by 4 runs. Boyd Rankin defended a tight target at the death in front of a home crowd.
• 2006 — Leicestershire beat Notts Outlaws by 4 runs. Darren Maddy’s 86* proved just enough.
• 2010 — Hampshire beat Somerset on a tie, separated only by fewer wickets lost. Still the only tied final the competition has ever had.

The 3 Biggest Blowouts

• 2009 — Sussex beat Somerset by 63 runs, the largest winning margin in any T20 Blast final.
• 2013 — Northants beat Surrey by 102 runs (D/L), though this was a rain-adjusted target rather than a “real-time” gap.
• 2017 — Notts Outlaws beat Birmingham Bears by 22 runs, comfortable by the tournament’s usual standards.

This pattern matters: finals decided by fewer than 5 runs or 1 wicket have happened 5 times in 23 years, meaning roughly 1 in every 4-5 seasons goes down to the wire.

Counties Still Waiting for Their First Title

This is the list every other “T20 Blast winners” article skips. Of the 18 first-class counties that compete, several heavyweight names have never once lifted the trophy.

• Yorkshire — runners-up in 2012, still no title despite a deep pool of England talent.
• Durham — runners-up in 2016, yet to win the Blast.
• Glamorgan — Wales’ only first-class county, no Blast final win to date.
• Derbyshire — never reached a final.
• Warwickshire — finalists in the very first season (2003) as Warwickshire Bears, but no title since (their 2014 and 2022 wins were under the Birmingham Bears name, a rebrand of the same club, but technically counted separately by some record-keepers).

If your county isn’t on the winners table above, this is usually why — they’ve either gone close and lost, or haven’t made a final at all.

Most Successful Teams: The Three-Way Tie at the Top

For years Leicestershire stood alone as the most decorated T20 Blast side. Somerset’s 2025 win changed that.

Worth noting how differently these three sides built their three titles. Leicestershire did it early and fast, all three wins inside an 8-year window (2004-2011) when the tournament was still finding its identity.

Hampshire spread theirs across 12 years (2010-2022), built on a rotating core rather than one golden generation. Somerset’s run is the most dramatic of the three: a maiden title in 2005, then an 18-year gap before their next, followed by two more in three years (2023, 2025).

The T20 Blast by Era: How the Competition Changed Shape

Rather than read 23 seasons as one long list, it’s more useful to split them into eras, because the tournament’s competitive balance has shifted noticeably over time.

Era 1: The Founding Years (2003-2009)

• Twenty20 Cup, the tournament’s original name
• Leicestershire was the dominant side, winning 3 of the first 4 seasons
• Trent Bridge and The Oval hosted finals before Edgbaston took over permanently

Era 2: The Friends Provident/Life Years (2010-2013)

• Renamed for sponsorship; format stayed identical
• Hampshire emerged as the team to beat, winning 2 of 4 titles including the only tied final
• Northants broke through in 2013 with a Duckworth-Lewis win built around David Willey’s all-round final

Era 3: The NatWest Blast Years (2014-2017)

• Four different champions in four years: Birmingham Bears, Lancashire, Northants, Notts Outlaws
• The most wide-open stretch in tournament history — no repeat winners, no dominant side
• Edgbaston cemented its status as the permanent home of Finals Day

Era 4: The Vitality Blast Years (2018-Present)

• Rebranded again; Worcestershire, Essex, Notts, Kent, Hampshire, Somerset, and Gloucestershire have all won at least once
• 2022’s 1-run final and 2025’s record run-chase by Somerset both happened in this stretch
• The most unpredictable era yet: 7 different champions across 8 seasons (2018-2025)

Key Records at a Glance

• Most titles: Leicestershire, Hampshire, Somerset — 3 each
• Most finals hosted: Edgbaston — 19 of 23 finals
• Closest final: 2022, Hampshire beat Lancashire by 1 run
• Biggest final margin: 2009, Sussex beat Somerset by 63 runs
• Different champions: 13 counties in 23 seasons
• Back-to-back champions: None — ever
• Longest gap between titles for one team: Somerset, 18 years (2005 to 2023)

Also Read:

• Best Bowling Figures In T20 Blast (2026 Records)
• Fastest Centuries In T20 Blast (2026 Updated)

Why No Team Has Ever Defended the Title

This is the single most repeated stat about the T20 Blast, and it’s worth asking why it keeps happening. A few structural reasons stand out:

• 18 teams, two groups, then knockouts — the format itself rewards momentum over a long season, which is hard to repeat twice running.
• Player movement is constant. English white-ball squads reshuffle every winter with the Hundred draft, franchise T20 deals abroad, and central contracts pulling players in different directions.
• Finals Day is single-elimination pressure. Even the best regular-season team can lose a one-off semi-final on a bad day, regardless of how dominant they were getting there.

Whatever the cause, it’s the defining trait of the competition, a 23-year streak with zero repeat champions is almost unheard of in professional team sport.

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