Luke Littler has continued to raise the bar despite failing to lead England to glory in the World Cup of Darts. He teamed up with Luke Humphries to represent England, who went into the tournament as the overwhelming favourites to claim the spoils. However, it went spectacularly wrong when they were dumped out by Germany in their first match.
Littler was accused of ‘letting his country down’ after falling short on the international stage, just days after the pair were awarded MBEs in the King’s Birthday Honours. In spite of England’s failure, the 18-year-old has continued to set high standards at the oche. He stands head and shoulders above his rivals, including the likes of Michael van Gerwen, in one particular metric.
The reigning world champion is the only tour card holder to have averaged over 100 across all competitions in 2025. He has recorded a staggering overall average of 100.92 from 95 matches since the beginning of the year.
Humphries is close behind on 99.58, while Gerwyn Price rounds out the top three with an impressive average of 98.77. Van Gerwen, meanwhile, boasts an average of 96.58 which puts him behind others like Stephen Bunting, Josh Rock and Gary Anderson.
Littler will be hoping to add to his brilliant average at this week’s Polish Darts Masters. He is among the favourites to win the tournament and take home the £20,000 jackpot, which will not count towards the Order of Merit.
The man from Runcorn is undoubtedly the most exciting young talent the sport has ever seen, but Vincent van der Voort believes he is developing a serious image problem which could hinder his rise.
“It’s becoming a real issue, especially when you consider how long his career could be,” said the Dutchman on the latest episode of the Darts Draait Door podcast.
“He was getting booed a lot in Germany at first but now it’s spreading. I was in New York last weekend [for the US Darts Masters] and even there, the crowd was giving him a hard time.
“He wasn’t happy at all. The truth is, he’s only really popular in England, and not even everywhere there. Outside of the UK, he’s getting booed pretty much everywhere now, including in the US.