Plenty around the county game like to rib Warwickshire that their 2021 County Championship title win does not really count.
That first full domestic season during the pandemic, a reworked first-class schedule was split into two phases. In an imperfect summer, with matches cancelled and entire XIs replaced due to positive Covid-19 tests, Warwickshire ended up top of the pile by 3.5 points after carrying over 21 from the initial stage.
Benefitting from a well-intended regulation implemented on the fly, it allowed them to take the ball to the corner to confirm their triumph. Naturally, plenty others feel that first Championship title since 2012 has an asterisk.
Well, there can be no complaints about 2026. A seventh win of the campaign was secured on Saturday, beating Leicestershire to claim a ninth County Championship, sealed with the best kind of title charge - late and unstoppable.
They assumed the lead of Division One in the penultimate round after a two-day win over Essex, stealing a march on Somerset and defending champions Nottinghamshire while they were still in play, against Yorkshire and Sussex, respectively. Both went on to lose.
Warwickshire have embarked on a remarkable September, winning four in a row, starting with three away from home. Who knows how they would have come into the month had their match at the end of August not been so badly affected by rain. Nottinghamshire, who had remained in contention coming into this round but will now finish fourth, looked the much better side from what little cricket was played.
The round prior to that produced a dramatic one-wicket win over Sussex, who had subjected them to their only defeat in April, and will now finish third. A backs-to-the-wall draw against Yorkshire at Scarborough in June is another result they can look back on as a pivotal moment, having been 63 for 3 chasing a highly unlikely 453.
"It's been very special to see it all come together in the last six weeks," Ed Barnard said, in his first season as captain of the county. Plenty regard the genial allrounder as crucial to all of this, allying great skill (679 runs and 30 wickets) with the tactical nous that had him dubbed a Future England Captain during his England Under-19 days. "You don't plan to have the perfect game, but we have had two or three of them and it's been really special."
It was fitting that Ethan Bamber clipped the top of off stump one final time this summer to seal it. His 69 dismissals at 19.39 this campaign have him top of the tree across both divisions, taking his overall haul to 112 at 24.65 for Warwickshire since joining from Middlesex at the end of the 2024 season.
Bamber's signing was a statement of intent, and further bowling reinforcements were made coming into 2026. Jordan Thompson (Yorkshire) and Nathan Gilchrist (Kent) were brought in, as well as a return for Keith Barker (Hampshire), though the veteran seamer hung up his boots in August. All have done their bit to share the burden across an ever-taxing schedule.
And, of course, there was the availability of Chris Woakes following his England retirement last year. His 27 dismissals have come alongside 228 runs, 23 of them unbeaten to take the side over the line in that nerve-shredder against Sussex.
"He could easily be sat in Saint-Tropez right now with his feet up," Oliver Hannon-Dalby joked. "But he's here trying to win a championship for us, which says a lot about him, says a lot about what he thinks about the club, and what we're trying to do right now."
A winner in 2012 but having missed 2021 through injury, Hannon-Dalby is that vital part of any dressing-room; a totem of what all this should be about. Having turned around a season on the periphery - it had even started with a loan to Worcestershire - he took 28 dismissals of his own and, on Saturday, told his younger team-mates to take a mental photo of the final throes. Talking from experience, you'll regret not savouring it.
Their overseas signings have been resourceful. Australian Beau Webster was the ultimate team man; 408 runs, 12 wickets and a catalyst to the harmony that has not exactly been a regular theme in this corner of Birmingham.
Indian left arm spinner Manav Suthar has had one of the great back-ends to a season, starting with a seven-wicket haul against Hampshire and a second innings 5 for 75 to tear through Essex. His stint at the club has been juggled around three Test appearances against Afghanistan and Sri Lanka that reaped 23 wickets. Many at the club reckon the 24-year-old will emerge as one of the best spinners in the world.
Bowlers win you games, and it's not just that Warwickshire have more of both. They have, crucially, finally found a way to take wickets at Edgbaston.
Across the 2024 and 2025 seasons, they managed just two victories across 14 home fixtures, with 10 draws among them. In 2026, that has flipped to four in seven. Edgbaston's head of sports turf Gary Barwell, one of the busiest groundsmen around, deserves credit, especially having produced a competitive surface for the England-Pakistan Test amid a heatwave.
Warwickshire's batters, too, deserve plaudits for adopting a team-first attitude in this regard. Collectively, they might have only managed five centuries among four batters. But they were able to see the bigger picture.
"I feel like we made a change for the better," Sam Hain said. He was Warwickshire's most productive run-scorer with 1,048, as well as two of those hundreds. "Every team wants to have that advantage at home, and we weren't getting enough wins at home. We made a collective choice to bring the bowlers more into it."
Naturally, there is a balance to strike. Seaming pitches lift all bowlers, and bringing opponents into a game is always a risk. But Warwickshire have just been better, including in the cordon. Rob Yates has had one of the great summers at second slip with 39 catches - a record in a 14-match Championship summer. Remarkably, he finishes just one shy of Graeme Hick's 40 in 1989, which was a 22-match season.
As deserved as this is, not many saw it coming. Warwickshire were mid-table in 2025, and narrowly avoided relegation in 2024, with many of the same faces. And their inability to reach the knockout stages of the T20 Blast or One-Day Cup, along with Birmingham Phoenix's dreadful Hundred campaign, suggested an unsettling malaise at Edgbaston. It is a credit to men's head coach Ian Westwood, who bleeds Bear, that he has kept the group all together and pushing.
To go by the scenes over the last three days, things are much rosier than feared. A team to be proud of were cheered throughout by crowds bumped up through free entry and the anticipation of glory, which eventually came shortly after 2pm on Saturday.
Perhaps it is how Warwickshire won this title - with a sprint finish from behind the pack of leaders, with a group of players fighting for one another, in a season where nothing was promised - that made this extra special. And, dare it be said, proper.
For all the oddities of the 2021 success, it meant something to the players. Hain, for instance, has a tattoo of the trophy on his left arm.
Now, the 31-year-old must decide whether to get another trophy alongside it, or simply add a star above it to denote a second triumph. How other squad members choose to commemorate the feat is on them.
Regardless, it will be imprinted. At no point was it anticipated, but as it came into view, they dug deep. And in the end, they have deserved every bit of it.