YORKSHIRE have announced that top order batter Noah Kelly has signed his first professional contract with the county. Kelly, 18, has penned a two-and-a-half-year rookie deal, which started on July 1. The left-hander has been with Yorkshire since the age of 10 and has graduated through the age groups.
The Driffield Town product makes the step up from the club’s academy, where he has been a heavy run-scorer for the last three summers, including in 2024. “Yorkshire is such a massive club and my home club as well,” said a delighted Kelly. “To sign with them adds more beauty to it and I can’t wait to get stuck in.
“The pathway has been absolutely amazing. I joined it when I was 10 and have gone all the way through. “This is a big check point in my cricketing career.
Signing your maiden academy deal is your first, and your second is that first professional deal. “It feels like a new chapter and the beginning of a lot of hard work to come.” Kelly, a former Bunbury Festival player, won the Yorkshire Premier League North title with Driffield in 2022, the same season he helped Yorkshire’s second team win the Championship title.
In all cricket last summer, including some England representative cricket and for Driffield, he scored 2,025 runs in 45 matches with 12 fifties and five hundreds. At the start of this summer, he hit a superb 171 for Yorkshire’s Academy side in a two-day friendly against Lancashire at Bradford Park Avenue while batting at number three. Kelly.
