Birmingham Bears prove too much for Foxes
A solid all-round performance saw Birmingham Bears improve their qualification prospects at the expense of a Leicestershire Foxes side which has now lost their last two matches in the competition.
Put into bat after losing the toss, the Bears’ testing total was all the more impressive given they lost two early wickets. Young opener Ed Pollock, who had hit 66 off 40 balls on debut against Derbyshire in the previous game, was stumped by Luke Ronchi for 5, a clever piece of bowling by left-arm spinner Callum Parkinson as the batsman came down the wicket, and then Ian Bell, having lofted one straight six, tried to repeat the shot against Clint Mckay and skied high to Tom Wells at mid-off.
Having been struggling on 23-2 off four overs, however, Sam Hain and William Porterfield took 29 off the last two overs of the powerplay, with Porterfield hitting the off-spin of Colin Ackermann for two sixes. Hain was fortunate to survive on 21, when Gavin Griffiths dropped a straightforward caught and bowled opportunity, and it was to prove an expensive miss by the Foxes.
On a flat pitch, a run rate of 9.3 looked attainable, but though 32 came off Keith Barker’s opening two overs, Leicestershire’s top order found Boyd Rankin harder to get away, and Cameron Delport could not clear mid-on.
Mark Cosgrove looked in wonderful touch before wastefully carving Thomason’s gentle medium pace to Birmingham captain Ian Bell at extra cover, Jeetan Patel bowled Colin Ackermann, and the writing was on the wall when when Thomason bowled Luke Ronchi.
