Payne is now comfortably Gloucestershire’s top wicket taker in T20 cricket, having claimed 196 in 143 matches spread over 14 years.
“I’ve never felt better with my bowling,” said Payne, who gave up red-ball cricket in 2022. “I moved to a white-ball contract to look after my body and it was the best decision I’ve ever made.”
He ended a memorable day at Edgbaston by finishing clear of Birmingham Bears’ new England T20 international Dan Mousley and Essex’s Michael Pepper to win the Professional Cricketers Association’s 2024 Vitality Blast player of the year award, with 33 wickets.
Equalling the 33 taken by Alfonso Thomas for Somerset in 2010 as the most in an English domestic T20 season, he took 33 wickets at an average of 12.8 with an economy rate of just 6.29 – and won five individual ‘most valuable player’ awards.
But, despite taking 4-23 in the quarter-final, a miserly 1-9 in the semi-final (taking the key wicket of T20 top run scorer Daniel Hughes) and then 3-27 in the final, Payne was happier to highlight the team effort – especially the captaincy of Glos skipper Jack Taylor.
“Jack’s captaincy has been brilliant,” he said.
“He’s been outstanding. It’s not an easy job but he can hold his head up high and be proud of the way he has led us. He deserves to know that.”
