Leicestershire Foxes have plenty of thinking to do before they face Worcestershire Rapids on Friday evening in the NatWest T20 Blast at Grace Road.
The Foxes were soundly beaten yesterday by the Birmingham Bears on their home patch, their second consecutive defeat in the competition.
Although a 25-run reverse is not sufficient cause to be reaching for the panic button, the Foxes need to find more with both bat and ball if they are to have a real say in the 20-over format this season.
Yesterday they allowed the Bears to put too many runs on the board without ever doing anything spectacular. And when they came to chase down a testing target of 176, they were found wanting.
The absence of New Zealander Scott Styris with a calf injury did not help the Foxes, but more critical was the loss of their top three – Niall O'Brien, Josh Cobb and Greg Smith – inside the six-over powerplay which seriously set back their cause in front of a healthy Sunday afternoon crowd.
Having won the toss and put the Bears into bat, the hosts began well enough with a couple of tidy overs from Jigar Naik and Ant Ireland but, by the end of the sixth over, Birmingham were getting into gear at 49-1.
Their innings was built around a half-century from Will Porterfield, who made 67 off 46 balls – a feature of his knock the way he ran between the wickets rather than any power-packed hitting.
It was a case of steady progress, then, for the visitors until the last five overs which produced 53 runs, Ateeq Javid hammering 27 off just a dozen deliveries, benefiting from too many short deliveries as he lashed five boundaries which saw the Bears grasp the initiative.
To snatch back the momentum, Leicestershire needed to get their reply off to a good start. They did not get it, even though Cobb did have an escape when he was caught without scoring only to be reprieved by a no-ball from Keith Barker.
O'Brien perished in the second over when he drove Chris Woakes straight to mid-on and, in the next over, Cobb was caught as he miscued a short delivery from Chris Wright and gave a simple catch to cover.
Smith was then bowled by Boyd Rankin and three of the Foxes' premier strokemakers were back in the dug-out, none of them having reached double figures.
A glimmer of hope was supplied by a fourth-wicket stand of 41 in six overs between Ramnaresh Sarwan and Ned Eckersley, but by the time Eckersley was stumped for 18 off the bowling of Jeetan Patel, the required run-rate had spiralled to above 12 an over.
Sarwan hit 37 at a run a ball before he was bowled by Patel, and Tom Wells showed what he is about with a thunderous half-century.
He reached his first T20 50 in the final over of the innings from just the 28th ball he faced having smoked three fours and four sixes.
It was an innings full of promise but, as good as it was to watch, Leicestershire still finished considerably short of their target after a performance which fell considerably short of their own expectations.
