| Administrator: | England and Wales Cricket Board |
| Cricket Format: | Limited overs cricket(40 overs per innings) |
| Tournament Format: | League |
| Champions: | Warwickshire |
| Count: | 3 |
| Participants: | 18 |
| Matches: | 153 |
| Most Runs: | 654 Matthew Hayden (Hampshire) |
| Most Wickets: | 31 Peter Martin (Lancashire) |
| Previous Year: | 1996 |
| Previous Tournament: | 1996 AXA Equity & Law League |
| Next Year: | 1998 |
| Next Tournament: | 1998 AXA League |
The 1997 Axa Life League was the twenty-ninth competing of what was generally known as the Sunday League. The competition was won for the third time by Warwickshire County Cricket Club.
| width=200 | Team | width=20 | Pld | width=20 | W | width=20 | T | width=20 | L | width=20 | N/R | width=20 | A | width=20 | Pts | width=60 | NetRRN100 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Warwickshire (C) | 17 | 13 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 52 | 14.141 | |||||||||
| 17 | 12 | 0 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 50 | 7.709 | ||||||||||
| 17 | 10 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 46 | 1.894 | ||||||||||
| 17 | 9 | 1 | 5 | 0 | 2 | 42 | 7.116 | ||||||||||
| 17 | 9 | 0 | 5 | 1 | 2 | 42 | 1.061 | ||||||||||
| 17 | 9 | 0 | 6 | 0 | 2 | 40 | 4.316 | ||||||||||
| 17 | 9 | 1 | 6 | 0 | 1 | 40 | -2.382 | ||||||||||
| 17 | 8 | 1 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 38 | 6.871 | ||||||||||
| 17 | 8 | 0 | 6 | 0 | 3 | 38 | 2.789 | ||||||||||
| 17 | 8 | 1 | 7 | 0 | 1 | 36 | 5.249 | ||||||||||
| 17 | 7 | 0 | 6 | 2 | 2 | 36 | 1.011 | ||||||||||
| 17 | 7 | 0 | 7 | 0 | 3 | 34 | -0.199 | ||||||||||
| 17 | 5 | 0 | 9 | 0 | 3 | 26 | -4.016 | ||||||||||
| 17 | 4 | 0 | 9 | 0 | 4 | 24 | -3.047 | ||||||||||
| 17 | 5 | 0 | 11 | 1 | 0 | 22 | -4.733 | ||||||||||
| 17 | 3 | 1 | 10 | 1 | 2 | 20 | -8.287 | ||||||||||
| 17 | 3 | 0 | 13 | 0 | 1 | 14 | -12.273 | ||||||||||
| 17 | 2 | 0 | 13 | 0 | 2 | 12 | -16.724 | ||||||||||
| Team marked | |||||||||||||||||