Grace Road

Leicestershire V Glamorgan

(Metro Bank One-Day Cup)

11th August 2o24

Another delightfully engrossing day's cricket - I really wish I had not waited until my mid-fifties before taking this sport seriously.  

On this occasion Leicestershire succeeded in keeping their bid to retain the One-Day Cup alive, with a narrow nine run victory over a previously unbeaten (in the tournament) Glamorgan side.

Things began poorly for the Foxes as Ian Holland was dismissed in the first over, with a parade of colleagues swiftly following him back to the pavilion, leaving the hosts on 59/5 at the completion of the eleventh over.

Captain Lewis Hill and Ajinkya Rahane's respective dismissals were both, for the most part, self-inflicted; Hill run out after dawdling between the stumps, whilst Rahane inexplicably decided to raise his bat out of the way of a wicket-bound delivery and, seemingly, deciding to play it with his pads instead.  

Fortunately, Peter Handscombe was on hand to dig his side out of the hole; the Australian going on to score 103, which incorporated a fine partnership of 139 with Liam Trevaskis.  Leics had reached an, at one time improbable-looking, 255 when Handscombe was caught; with Tom Scriven and Roman Walker's late partnership adding a further 16 runs from the final 14 balls of the Foxes' innings.

  
Glamorgan, chasing 272 to win, always appeared to be behind on the required run-rate; a state of affairs not helped by the fact Leicestershire always managed to take a vital wicket just when the visitors looked on the verge of putting together a number of fruitful partnerships.  When Colin Ingram was caught lbw in the 42nd over, leaving Glamorgan on 197/7, I (and a few others in Grace Road, I bet) thought that may be that.  

But the redoubtable Dan Douthwaite had other ideas, and he just refused to capitulate.  His colleagues' slightly conservative scoring rate earlier in the match perhaps left the chap with just a little too much to do to rescue the situation.  By, by gum, he didn't half come close.  

His knock of 62, which included four 4s and four 6s, had his side requiring just ten runs from the final 10 balls to win.  But he was hampered by the fact his partner at the death was bowler Jamie McIlroy - who, with the best will in the world, was never going hit a boundary.  Douthwaite was caught going for broke with another attempted boundary whack, which fell just short of the ropes and into the gleeful hands of Sol Budinger.  

Thus did Leicestershire rescue a 9 run win from what should have been a rather more comfortable afternoon (in my opinion).

So - it is off to Bristol in a few days time, where another win would secure a place in the knock-out stage for the Foxes.

I seem to have taken loads of pix of these orange seats.
But I like them.

This is Ben Cox...and the vid clip below shows him hitting one of his six 4s of the afternoon.

Glamorgan's Timm van der Gugten

A fox and two tall cricketers.

Ajinkya Rahane

     

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Leicestershire V Hampshire

(Metro Bank One-Day Cup)

16th August 2o24

I do appreciate how facile, not to say deeply silly, it is to suggest any single incident could have predicated the result of a match which had lasted around seven hours.  But I came away from this one believing two points decided the outcome.

Leics, chasing 291 to win, had recovered from 30/3 to reach 282/7 leaving The Foxes requiring just 9 runs from the final 12 balls.  Reaching this point was in no small way due to Ben Cox's partnership with Liam Trevaskis, Cox contributing 45 to his side's total.  But Cox had been dropped by Hampshire's Fletcha Middleton in the 42nd over whilst on 29.  Those 16 additional runs scored by Cox, before he was dismissed made a huge difference in the end.

Similarly, in the tense final over, with Leics requiring four runs from the final four balls, Hampshire bowler Dom Kelly chose the most inopportune moment to bowl a two-run no-ball.  Thus did 4 required from 4, become 2 required from 4, Scriven ultimately doing the needful.  But this really had been a wafer-thin close win.

Liam Trevaskis

Tom Scriven