Leicestershire Foxes unbeaten run in the YB40 competition came to a dramatic end as Middlesex Panthers beat them by 10 wickets with 9 overs to spare.
Middlesex won the toss and elected to field. Leicestershire welcomed back Niall O'Brien from International duty with Ireland, and Jigar Naik came into the side for James Sykes to play his first YB40 match of the season.
Josh Cobb, who had scored 3 YB40 centuries from 3 innings prior to today, hit the first ball of the innings for a four. Then when he repeated the feat with the first ball of the second over, a decent score looked to be on the horizon.
Leicestershire were still looking good when they reached 50 without loss in the 7th over. Cobb was bowled by James Harris next ball. Greg Smith hit the last ball of the 10th over for the first six of the innings. Smith and O'Brien had a 47 run partnership before Smith was caught behind by Adam Rossington off the bowling of Tim Murtagh, making the score 102 for 2.
That is when Leicestershire's problems really began. Leicestershire went on to lose 3 wickets in the space of 9 balls to go from 102 for 1 to 103 for 4 in the 17th over In this frantic few minutes, O'Brien (who ended up as top scorer with 41) was caught by a sharp catch by former Leicestershire player Chris Rogers, and Joe Burns was out for a duck. Both wickets fell to Gareth Berg.
This meant Matthew Boyce and Shiv Thakor really needed to steady the ship. They only managed to move the score to 133 for 5 in the 25th over before Thakor was out for 12. Boyce followed 2 overs later for 22 to make it 138 for 6.
Michael Thornely batted well, bringing up Leicestershire's 150 with a six in the 29th over. Wickets continued to fall but the lower order played their shots with Naik, batting at 10, hitting a Six too. Thornely was eventually out for 39 from 40 balls. The innings concluded when Naik was caught for 14 off 13 balls from the pentiultimate ball of the 40 overs. Leicestershire finished 220 all out. Middlesex's 5 frontline bowlers all picked up 2 wickets each and went for less than 6 an over.
Defending a small score, Leicestershire could have been off to the started they needed. Leicestershire only conceded a leg bye from the first over. Anthony Ireland then had Paul Stirling playing away from his body and the ball carried to second slip only for Smith to drop it. Stirling then hit the next 3 balls for consecutive boundaries to send an ominous warning of just how costly that drop would be.
Middlesex didn't really offer Leicestershire any other chances throughout their innings. 50 came up for Middlesex in the 7th over, same as Leicestershire, but they soon rushed to 100 without loss in the 12th over. No matter who bowled for Leicestershire, Stirling and Dawid Malan had the measure of them. Anthony Irleand suffered the most with his 4 overs going for 43 runs.
Stirling made 50 from 29 balls which he went on to convert to 132 not out from 96 balls and contained 19 fours. His 100 came from 71 balls. Malan ably supported Stirling making 80 not out from 86 balls and contained 7 fours and a six. Malan had reached 50 from 58 balls. Middlesex put Leicestershire out of their misery when Stirling with a four from Naik's last over. Middlesex had reached their target of 221 in the 31st over with no wickets lost.
The manner of Leicestershire thrashing after earlier results in the YB40 competition has come as a surprise. The batting is a concern. As soon as Cobb was dismissed, the batting looked fragile and lacked composure. Then when it came to the bowling, Stirling and Malan made it look like they were batting on a different pitch. However, 3 wins from 4 is still good. Leicestershire have no matches until next Sunday's YB40 match away at Scarborough. Let's hope today was just a blip and recharging the batteries will produce the right result next week.
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