Leicestershire tear apart Derbyshire to boost quarter-final hopes

Leicestershire tear apart Derbyshire to boost quarter-final hopes

The Foxes will leave Derby with their tails wagging as Leicestershire squeezed the life out of the Falcons’ run chase to hand a major boost to their quarter-final hopes in the Vitality Blast.

In truth, the Foxes eviscerated the Falcons, tearing into their batting line up and leaving their innings for dead and for their coach, captain and players to pick over the bones of what was an extremely disappointing batting performance.

Leicestershire on the other hand will leave the ground, feeling very happy with themselves, having won by 55 runs – bowling out the Falcons for just 94, narrowly avoiding their lowest total in T20 cricket of 72, also against Leicestershire in 2013.

Having won the toss and elected to bat on a used pitch Leicestershire would have happy with the 149 for seven they posted, with scoring never appearing easy, especially as the ball got older and softer.

All the batsmen got in, without going on to make a big score, Cosgrove top scoring with 38. He was the only batsman who looked comfortable at the crease and scored at a strike rate of 146.

The only other batsmen who came close was the Foxes’ skipper Colin Ackermann, who scored 28 off 21 balls, before falling to Matt Critchley, who impressed with the ball again, following up his figures of 4 for 36 on Tuesday with 2 for 25.

It was no surprise that on a used pitch it was the bowlers who were willing to take pace off the ball who caused the issues for the foxes and Critchley was ably assisted by Alex Hughes and Luis Reece in restricting the middle overs.

When the Foxes came to bowl pace on or pace off didn’t matter as they shared the wickets around and all can be very proud of their performance and return on the evening. They didn’t give the Falcons a sniff at any point and such was their dominance that the Falcons found themselves 26 for six in the powerplay and completely out of the game.

Leicestershire were helped by some suspect batting from Derbyshire’s top order, who all may reflect on their shot selection and question if they needed to play the shots they did.

The two Foxes bowlers who stood out were Gavin Griffiths who took three wickets for 14 in three overs, two of which fell in the fourth over, which also included a run out and tore out the back bone of the innings as Godleman and Du Plooy both fell to boundary catches.

Ackermann followed up his runs with three wickets also, going for just nine runs from his four overs. He bowled tightly and gave the Derbyshire batters no room to work, or pace to use to manoeuvre the ball and score the runs required. 

The results sees the Foxes leapfrog the badly wounded Falcons into fourth in the North Group with 10 points from 10 games and gain pole position for a quarter final spot.

Both sides play tomorrow, Derbyshire travelling to Trent Bridge to face the Outlaws who are currently second in the table and the Foxes are also on their travels, in Northampton to face the Steelbacks who currently find themselves in eighth spot, but only three points behind the Foxes in fourth.

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