LEICESTER (Nottinghamshire won toss): Leicestershire Foxes (2pts) beat Nottinghamshire Outlaws by five wickets
A HELTER-SKELTER finale, in front of a record 5,100 crowd, brought Leicestershire, the Twenty20 Cup holders, a breathless victory with four balls to spare over Nottinghamshire after they had needed 17 off two overs. Paul Nixon kept cool with a decisive innings of 32 not out off 19 balls but Ottis Gibson on-drove the winning six off Andrew Harris.
The spin challenge also proved too much for the Outlaws. Jeremy Snape, Dinesh Mongia, the man of the match, and Claude Henderson systematically took the pace off the ball for the Foxes, making it difficult for the visiting team’s batsmen to force it away. Snape took three for 18 and ten overs from the slow bowlers yielded five wickets for 45 runs overall.
The personnel of both sides has changed since last season but the balance of power is unchanged, with the Outlaws missing the point that conservation of wickets is priceless. Their batting bordered on the reckless, four wickets crashing in the first ten overs and seven were down with five overs remaining. It meant that Paul Franks, a natural hitter, almost had to block out the final overs, accruing 17 not out off 23 balls.
Few of these matches are won with the top-scorer hitting only 32, which is what Samit Patel made off 28 balls. The big guns, with Stephen Fleming chopping on to Gibson after hitting 24 off 12 balls and David Hussey bowled by Snape when aiming an ugly stroke to leg, simply ran out of ammunition.
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Chris Read misjudged the pace of a pitch with decent carry and drove a catch to short mid-wicket and Mark Ealham hoisted another to the mid-wicket boundary. This catalogue of indiscretions began with Graeme Swann playing on to Gibson, the first-wicket partnership of eight contrasting with the 71 that the Foxes averaged in last year’s title triumph.
Snape took the wickets of Patel and Ealham off successive balls and only Gareth Clough, with two sixes in a 17-ball innings of 23, sustained the Outlaws before they lost for the third consecutive time to the Foxes. It was still not straightforward because H. D. Ackerman was run out by Ealham’s throw from slip to the bowler’s end, but a third-wicket partnership of 63 in nine overs between Mongia and John Sadler provided the substance that the Outlaws lacked.
The Foxes needed 41 off five overs with five wickets in hand after Swann could not hold a catch one-handed from Nixon, on six, on the mid-wicket boundary off the bowling of Clough. It was just one facet of an enthralling match.
SHOW-STOPPER: Fleming’s three consecutive fours off Charl Willoughby.
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SHOW-DOWNER: The Outlaws’ continuing struggle in one-day matches.