The 1959 English cricket season saw the inauguration of the Second XI Championship which was to end the involvement of first-class counties in the Minor Counties Championship, though it took several years before all county second XIs switched to the new competition. The season marked the end of Surrey's sequence of seven Championships, with Yorkshire winning the title.

Honours

• County Championship - Yorkshire
• Minor Counties Championship - Warwickshire II
• Second XI Championship - Gloucestershire II
• Wisden - Ken Barrington
  Ken Barrington
  Kenneth Frank Barrington , better known as Ken Barrington, played for the English cricket team and Surrey County Cricket Club in the 1950s and 1960s. He was a right-handed batsman and occasional leg-spin bowler, well known for his jovial good humour and long, defensive innings "batting with bulldog...
  
  , Donald Carr
  Donald Carr
  Donald Bryce Carr is a former English cricketer who played for Derbyshire from 1946 to 1967, for Oxford University from 1948 to 1951, and twice for England in 1951/52. He captained Derbyshire between 1955 and 1962, and scored over 10,000 runs for the county...
  
  , Ray Illingworth
  Ray Illingworth
  Raymond Illingworth, CBE is a former English cricketer, cricket commentator and cricket administrator. He was one of only nine players to have taken 2,000 wickets and made 20,000 runs in First class cricket, and the last one to do so...
  
  , Geoff Pullar
  Geoff Pullar
  Geoffrey Pullar was an English cricketer, who played for Lancashire, Gloucestershire and in twenty eight Tests for England....
  
  , M. J. K. Smith

Test series

England won all five Tests against a disappointing India, including three innings victories. This was the first time England had won all five Tests in a single series.

Leading batsmen

Vijay Manjrekar

Vijay Manjrekar

Vijay Laxman Manjrekar is a former Indian cricketer who played 55 Tests. A small man, he was a fine cutter and hooker of the ball. He was the father of Sanjay Manjrekar....

 topped the averages with 755 runs @ 68.63. M.J.K. Smith scored most runs, with 3249 @ 57.94.

External sources

• CricketArchive – season summary

Annual reviews

• Playfair Cricket Annual
  Playfair Cricket Annual
  Playfair Cricket Annual is a compact annual about cricket that is published in the United Kingdom each April, just before the English cricket season is due to begin. Its main purposes are to review the previous English season and to provide detailed career records and potted biographies of current...
  
   1960
• Wisden Cricketers Almanack 1960