[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

T20 Blast, North Group

vs Leicestershire

Grace Road, Leicester

Leics innings: The Pears won the toss and put Leicestershire in to bat on a grey, humid Sunday with rain sweeping across the country. Four consecutive wins followed by four consecutive defeats made this a crunch match for Worcs, and there could be no better start than Dillon Pennington drawing a leading edge from Nick Welch with the fourth ball, seeing the opener caught for 2 as he tried a leg-side slog. Leicestershire negotiated the remainder of the powerplay unscathed thanks to a half-century partnership from Peter Handscomb and Rishi Patel, but the introduction of the Worcs spinners proved too much for the pair. An arm-ball from Brett D'Oliveira seemed to bamboozle Handscomb, who perhaps expected a wrong 'un as he stepped back and played inside the line of the ball, which promptly thudded into his stumps for 36. This prompted a general and chaotic collapse: in the following over, Usama Mir had Colin Ackermann caught behind for 4, and two balls later Rishi Patel was LBW for 27 to make it 72-4. That became 77-5 as Louis Kimber continued the suicidal team policy of agricultural swipes at slow balls on the stumps and was bowled by Mitchell Santner; when Dolly had Rehan Ahmed caught in the deep it was 88-6, and Mir picked up a third and a fourth in two deliveries with Tom Scriven holing out and Michael Finan bowled by a peach of a googly, providing the leggy with career-best T20 figures of 4-22, beating his previous 4-24 for Sialkot Stallions in 2014. It might have been a minor moral victory for the hosts in the circumstances had they batted out the overs, but England's newest Test debutant Josh Tongue got off the mark with Wiaan Mulder caught at fine leg off a scoop, and Pat Brown had Callum Parkinson caught at extra cover to skittle Leics for 112 off 18.2 overs.

Worcs innings: Worcestershire chased circumspectly if not cautiously, punishing the bad balls while taking relatively few risks at the crease as Leicestershire tried to put spin to the fore themselves. New opener Jack Haynes was caught for a run a ball 16, while Mitchell Santner went for 18 in the ninth, Adam Hose chopped on from Rehan Ahmed for 5 in the next over, and Kashif Ali holed out to short third man for 10 five overs later. But Dolly was ever-present through the chase, and as the heavens began to open after sixteen overs, with 10 runs still required, the skipper smashed Finan for a maximum over long-on then a lofted four over extra cover to complete his half-century and a breezy victory in one fell swoop.

Worcestershire WIN by six wickets

The Verdict: The Foxes seem determined to claim Worcestershire's mantle as this summer's hapless wooden spooners in this format - alas, as we know all too well, a red ball revival for counties of our size usually comes at the white ball's expense, and vice versa - but you can only beat what's put in front of you, and the Pears did that handily. A huge five days now awaits us against the top three, with Lancashire on Tuesday, Notts on Thursday and a trip to Edgbaston on Friday. Two wins out of three is the tough but probably necessary ask.