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Somerset Announce New First XI Scorer
Somerset County Cricket Club is pleased to announce that Kevin Mitchell has become the new First XI Scorer.
Kevin, who has a long association with Somerset CCC, takes over the role from Polly Rhodes who stepped down at the end of the 2025 season.
We caught up with Kevin earlier this week to discuss his new position.
We started off by asking him what being named as First XI scorer means to him.
“It means everything,” he said. “When I first started scoring, it was my ambition to become a County scorer, and Somerset have always been my team, so to be able to combine the two is great. It’s everything that I’ve wanted in my career.”
How did Kevin become involved with the sport?
“I’ve always played cricket, not to any great standard though! I played for my local village team, Biddestone CC, and played until I was about 30. At that point I realised that I wasn’t going to get any better. Their First XI were looking for a scorer at that time, so I volunteered and those were my first steps on the path to where I am now.
“I’d never really thought about the pathway for County scorers, but once I’d started I discovered that there was an ECB educational pathway. I started that and once I’d got to level two I was given the opportunity to score some games for Gloucestershire Second XI. That got me some more experience and in September 2016 I was accredited as a Level three scorer.
“In 2019 I moved clubs and started scoring for Bath’s First Team. That gave me more exposure to a higher level and that’s when I started to focus on trying to make a career out of cricket scoring.
“My link to Somerset started because I was doing work for Opta and CricViz. I was based in Taunton for a while covering Somerset games for them. Then an opportunity with Somerset Second XI became available. I applied for the job and was successful. I’ve scored for the Seconds for the last three seasons and that just cemented my belief that this is how I wanted to spend my summers.”
Kevin was keen to mention his predecessor, Polly Rhodes.
“Polly has had an undeniable impact on my pathway. I’ve followed in her footsteps for Somerset Second XI, Somerset First XI and at Bath. I’ll have to keep an eye out for what she’s up to next because the way things have gone, that could be my next career!
“She’s always been very supportive, encouraging and when she heard the news she couldn’t have been happier for me.”
Is Kevin looking forward to starting his new role?
“I’m very much looking forward to it. It always seems like such a long gap between the end of the season and the start of the next one. Once Christmas is out of the way, I’m sure things will start cranking up and the anticipation will start to build. I can’t wait to get started.”
