County seal super triumph

Date: Sunday 12 July 2009

Leicestershire (18 pts) 244 (Cobb 95, New 42, Finn 4-76, Murtagh 4-70) and 10-2 beat Middlesex (3 pts) 159 (Malan 67*, O’Brien 6-39) and 91 (Harris 4-24, O’Brien 3-29, Allenby 2-1) by eight wickets.

Leicestershire wrapped up their first Championship win of the season against Middlesex by eight wickets at Grace Road today.

County needed just over an hour to wrap up the triumph, bowling out the visitors for 91 before knocking off the seven runs required.

Although the small target came at a cost of two wickets, that didn’t take the gloss off a fine victory against a strong Middlesex outfit.

Leicestershire started the day in the pound seats by holding a nine-run lead and needing four wickets to wrap up the innings.

However, the visitors would have taken note from the County tail’s strong show yesterday and harboured hopes of setting a tricky target to give the batsmen something to think about.

With Gareth Berg and Shaun Udal at the wicket overnight and Tim Murtagh and Murali Kartik to come, the visitors may have been quietly confident of setting County around one-hundred to chase.

Any hopes of building a lead of any substance simply didn’t materialise though as Leics’ on-song seamers continued their stranglehold of the game.

County wanted an early strike or two and Iain O'Brien and AJ Harris both provided it. The wickets fell in identical fashion from inside edges after the seamers got balls to nip back in sharply.

Tom New held an excellent catch to end Berg’s innings off O’Brien and then pocketed another off Harris to dismiss Udal, who had just survived a huge leg-before shout.

Both wickets fell with the score on 84, meaning Middlesex were still one run behind and staring right down the barrel.

The pacemen continued to wreak havoc and Harris soon claimed a fourth victim as Murtagh edged to skipper Boeta Dippenaar at slip.

O'Brien (3-29) then wrapped up the innings by dismissing Steve Finn leg-before for the second time in the game, meaning County had dismissed the visitors for 91 and required just seven runs to win.

It took O'Brien's match haul to an outstanding 9-68, with Harris' 4-24 a career-best for the club. The seamer turned back the years with a superb display of swing bowling during the second innings and thoroughly deserved his haul.

Allenby finished with the excellent figures of 2-1, while Harry Gurney took the all-important wicket of Owais Shah as everyone chipped in.

In reply, Josh Cobb and Matthew Boyce both fell in pursuit of the target, but Dippenaar hit the winning runs to guide the side to a welcome and well-deserved first Championship win of the season.

The side have been showing promising signs in four-day cricket recently, and the 18 points were a good reward for all the hard work that everyone has put into the Championship campaign so far.

The team now have a few days off before taking on Northamptonshire at Wantage Road in the Pro40 next Sunday afternoon.