Leicestershire implode for 89 as Shan Masood fifty sets up Derbyshire
Derbyshire 159 for 5 (Masood 53, du Plooy 38*) beat Leicestershire 89 (Kerr 2-6, McKiernan 2-17) with 70 runs
Derbyshire Falcons took their first win of the Vitality Blast campaign as Leicestershire Foxes suffered a second heavy loss.
Leicestershire thought they could get close, but on what proved to be a difficult surface to score fluidly, they stumbled to 47 for 4 in the power play and never came back as the Falcons bowlers kept pushing the whole time, sacked for 89 to go down with a 70-run margin. Legspinner Mattie McKiernan’s 2 for 17 was the pick of some stingy Falcons bowling figures.
The Foxes lost Scott Steel, recalled instead of Louis Kimber, when he was shot by a full pitch from Hayden Kerr, the Australian left arm who has replaced injured Suranga Lakmal, and Hamish Rutherford, who lost their first pitch on Thursday on his debut at Thursday. , came to in the second over, leg ahead of Wayne Madsen.
Madsen produced a beautiful piece of fielding to beat Arron Lilley with a direct hit coming in from the point before Colin Ackermann cut Sam Conners to the back point.
Lewis Hill was ridden by wicketkeeper Brooke Guest before Rishi Patel was ahead of McKiernan. Foxes tried to work his way out of trouble, but Rehan Ahmed only succeeded halfway through. Callum Parkinson became a second victim for McKiernan before Mark Watt, the left arm spinner, picked up a well-deserved scalp and turned one past Roman Walker’s bat. Kerr took his second wicket to get the job done while Naveen-ul-Haq skied halfway through.
After nearly 200 chases against Birmingham Bears on Friday, Falcons had started out confidently. They lost to Luis Reece, thrown behind his legs by Walker, and Harry Came, caught on the back end of the last ball of the first six overs, but had 52 runs from the power play.
Falcons slipped to 77 for 4 after Wayne Madsen bowled full swing at Ben Mike and Guest. After his half-century the night before, he saw his punch bounce back as he made room to cut Callum Parkinson.
But prolific in the championship, Masood completed his first Blast half-century shortly after ending a seven-over-border drought with a pair near Naveen, and du Plooy, who had driven Parkinson’s four times over the ground. Steal cleverly from the back of his bat. The pair had added 51 in 26 balls when Masood cut the same bowler straight to the short third man.
du Plooy and Kerr managed a further 31 in the last four overs. Kerr drove Walker to the straight line and du Plooy grabbed a fourth line with another innovative shot over the keeper’s head. Foxes seemed happy to have kept Falcons under 160, but in case they had more than enough.