The 1968 English cricket season was something of a watershed for it was the last in which the County Championship

County Championship

The County Championship is the domestic first-class cricket competition in England and Wales...

 predominated. From 1969, a new limited overs league began and the number of Championship matches was therefore reduced. A system of batting and bowling bonus points was introduced into the County Championship, replacing the long established 'first innings' points.

The season was also significant in being the first in which counties were able to sign one overseas player who would not be subject to the normal residential qualification rules but could appear for them immediately. Most counties, with the notable exception of Yorkshire, took advantage of this. Nottinghamshire

Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club

Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Nottinghamshire, and the current county champions. Its limited overs team is called the Nottinghamshire Outlaws...

 pulled off the coup of signing Garry Sobers. Other players signed were Lee Irvine

Lee Irvine

Brian Lee Irvine, born on 9 March 1944 in Durban, South Africa was a cricketer who played four Tests for South Africa in 1969-70 in the last Test series played by South Africa before official sporting links were broken over the apartheid policy....

, Majid Khan, Mike Procter

Mike Procter

Michael John Procter is a former South African cricketer. A fast bowler and hard hitting batsman, his chances for a long and productive test career were wrecked by South Africa's banishment from world cricket in the 1970s and 1980s...

, Barry Richards

Barry Richards

Barry Anderson Richards is a former South African batsman. A right-handed "talent of such enormous stature", Richards is considered one of South Africa's most successful cricketers. He was able to play only four Test matches - all against Australia - before South Africa's exclusion from the...

, Asif Iqbal

Asif Iqbal (cricketer)

Asif Iqbal Razvi is a Pakistani cricketer who captained Pakistan and Kent CCC. He is now an ICC Match Referee....

, Farokh Engineer

Farokh Engineer

Farokh Maneksha Engineer is a former Indian cricketer of Parsi background who played 46 Tests for India and played first-class cricket for Mumbai in India and Lancashire in England. Engineer's active international career started in 1961 and continued to 1975, and he was India's first-choice...

, Hylton Ackerman

Hylton Ackerman

Hylton Michael Ackerman was a South African first class cricketer who played for Western Province in the 1970s.He attended Dale College Boy's High School where he was headboy. His son, Hylton D...

, Greg Chappell

Greg Chappell

Gregory Stephen Chappell MBE is a former cricketer who captained Australia between 1975 and 1977 and then joined the breakaway World Series Cricket organisation, before returning to the Australian captaincy in 1979, a position he held until his retirement 1983...

, Rohan Kanhai

Rohan Kanhai

Rohan Bholalall Kanhai is a former West Indian Cricket player of Indo-Guyanese descent. He is widely considered as one of the best batsmen of the 1960s. Kanhai featured in several great West Indian teams, playing with, among others, Sir Garfield Sobers, Roy Fredericks, Lance Gibbs, and Alvin...

 and Vanburn Holder

Vanburn Holder

Vanburn Alonzo Holder is a former West Indian cricketer who played in forty Tests and twelve ODIs from 1969 to 1979.Holder played in the golden era of West Indian fast bowling...

.

The season was a watershed for Yorkshire also. The club won its third successive title but the team broke up at the end of the season. The great fast bowler Fred Trueman

Fred Trueman

Frederick Sewards Trueman OBE was an English cricketer, generally acknowledged as one of the greatest fast bowlers in history. A bowler of genuinely fast pace who was widely known as Fiery Fred, Trueman played first-class cricket for Yorkshire County Cricket Club from 1949 until he retired in 1968...

 retired and, following a stalemate in his contractual talks, 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...

 left the club. Yorkshire did not win the title again until 2001.

Honours

• County Championship - Yorkshire
• Gillette Cup - Warwickshire
• Minor Counties Championship - Yorkshire II
• Second XI Championship - Surrey II
• Wisden - Jimmy Binks
  Jimmy Binks
  James Graham "Jimmy" Binks is a former English cricketer who played as a wicket-keeper for Yorkshire. Although he was regarded by many as the best wicket-keeper of his generation, his limited batting ability restricted him to just two Test match appearances for England, both on the 1963-64 tour to...
  
  , David Green, Barry Richards, Derek Underwood
  Derek Underwood
  Derek Underwood MBE is an English former international cricketer, and a former President of the MCC....
  
  , Ossie Wheatley
  Ossie Wheatley
  Oswald Stephen "Ossie" Wheatley, born at Low Fell, Gateshead, County Durham on 28 May 1935, was a cricketer who played for Cambridge University, Warwickshire and Glamorgan...
  
  

Test series

England failed to recover the Ashes, drawing 1-1 with Australia.

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...
  
   1969
• Wisden Cricketers Almanack 1969