It is one of the more striking verdicts to emerge from the opening weeks of the 2026 Premier League season — and it did not go unnoticed. Sky Sports Darts analyst Wayne Mardle, speaking after Night Three in Glasgow, declined to name the world number one and back-to-back world champion Luke Littler as the best player in the sport right now, instead handing that title to defending Premier League champion Luke Humphries.
“I still think Luke Humphries is playing the best darts on the planet right now, the most consistent darts on the planet,” Mardle said on Sky Sports. “Yes, he has trouble beating Littler, but who doesn’t? If Luke Humphries plays to this level for another month he could sew up the playoffs already. He could win three weeks and I believe he is playing so well so often, I don’t see it going wrong or him going off the boil.”
The timing of the assessment makes it all the more pointed. Humphries had just been beaten 6-5 in a tight semi-final by Gian van Veen — a match he arguably deserved to win, having averaged significantly higher — while Littler was being dismantled 6-1 by Jonny Clayton in the other last-four clash. The contrast in performances was difficult to ignore. Humphries, despite exiting, had produced the kind of relentless, high-quality leg-by-leg darts that prompted Mardle’s praise. Littler, despite having received a free bye through the quarter-finals following Michael van Gerwen’s withdrawal through illness, could not find his rhythm against an imperious Clayton and was outclassed.
For Mardle to look at that picture and hand the crown to Humphries rather than Littler says something about the narrative that has quietly been building. Littler heads into the fourth week of the Premier League without a single nightly victory, sitting near the foot of the table on just four points. He lost to Gian van Veen in Night One, was beaten in the semi-final in Antwerp on Night Two, and now exits Night Three in the same round, having never really got going against Clayton. Before Night Two in Antwerp, Littler had admitted he was carrying a bout of flu — context that softened the criticism at the time, but does not fully explain the broader pattern.
Humphries, by contrast, has quietly been one of the most consistent performers on the circuit. The Premier League table does not yet reflect it — he sits fifth, one point outside the play-off places — but the underlying quality of his play has been consistently high. Mardle’s point is less about the leaderboard and more about the standard of darts being produced night to night, and on that measure, his case for Humphries is hard to dismiss.
There is a longer context worth noting here too. Humphries won the Premier League last year, beating Littler in the final at the O2. Since then, the narrative has shifted almost entirely onto Littler — the World Grand Prix, the Grand Slam, the Saudi Arabia Darts Masters, a second consecutive world title. Humphries has remained a formidable player throughout, but the story of the sport has largely been written around his younger rival. Mardle’s verdict, even if rooted in the reality of three weeks’ form, is also a subtle reminder not to write off the defending champion.
Mardle was careful to frame the situation in broader terms too, noting the ebbs and flows that affect all players. “They’ll all go through phases,” he said. “Jonny is, Price we know, maybe Van Gerwen has had a phase, let’s hope he’s okay for next week. It’s what you do in those good spells.” The implication being that Humphries, right now, is in one of those good spells — and is making it count in a way that Littler, at least so far in this Premier League campaign, has not.
Whether that remains the case by the time the season reaches Belfast next Thursday is another matter entirely. Littler has shown too often that he is capable of ending a quiet spell with a statement night that renders all prior analysis redundant. But for now, in the eyes of at least one prominent voice in the sport, the best player on the planet is not the world number one. It is the man quietly averaging higher than everyone else and waiting for the table to catch up with him.
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