Leicestershire County Cricket Club

Last updated

Leicestershire County Cricket Club
Leicestershire County Cricket Club logo.svg
One Day nameLeicestershire Foxes
Personnel
CaptainTBC
Coach Alfonso Thomas
Overseas player(s) Peter Handscomb
Chief executiveSean Jarvis
Team information
Founded25 February 1879
Home ground Grace Road, Leicester
Capacity6,000 cricket matches / 19,999 concerts
History
First-class debut MCC
in 1895
at  Lord's
Championship  wins3
Pro40  wins2
FP Trophy  wins0
One-Day Cup  wins1
Twenty20 Cup  wins3
Benson & Hedges Cup  wins3
Official website LeicestershireCCC
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First-class

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One-day

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T20

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Grace Road cricket ground, Leicester Grace Road.jpg
Grace Road cricket ground, Leicester
The Pavilion End Grace Road pavilion.jpg
The Pavilion End
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The Bennett End

Leicestershire County Cricket Club is one of eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Leicestershire. It has also been representative of the county of Rutland. The club's limited overs team is called the Leicestershire Foxes. Founded in 1879, the club had minor county status until 1894, when it was promoted to first-class status pending its entry into the County Championship in 1895. [1] Since then, Leicestershire have played in every top-level domestic cricket competition in England.

Contents

The club is based at Grace Road in Leicester, known as The Uptonsteel County Ground for sponsorship reasons, and has also played home games at Aylestone Road in Leicester, at Hinckley, Loughborough, Melton Mowbray, Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Coalville and most recently Kibworth inside the traditional county boundaries of Leicestershire, and at Oakham, in Rutland.

In limited overs cricket, the kit colours are red shirt with green trousers in the One Day Cup and green shirt and green trousers in the T20 Blast. The shirt sponsors in the 2024 season were UptonSteel.

Leicestershire are in the second division of the County Championship and in the north group of the T20 Blast. Their best performances in recent years have come in one day cricket, winning the T20 Cup three times in eight years between 2004-11, and the One Day Cup in 2023.

Honours

First XI honours

Runners-up (2) – 1982, 1994
Runners-up: 1972, 2001
Runners-up: 1992, 2001
Runners-up: 1974, 1998

Second XI honours

Runners-up: 1961, 1975

+ 1 Bain Hogg Trophy – second XI one-day competition – 1996

History

Earliest cricket

Cricket may not have reached Leicestershire until well into the 18th century. A notice in the Leicester Journal dated 17 August 1776 is the earliest known mention of cricket in the county. Soon afterwards, a Leicestershire and Rutland Cricket Club was taking part in important matches, mainly against Nottingham Cricket Club and Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC). This club was prominent from 1781 until the beginning of the 19th century.

19th century

Little more is heard of Leicestershire cricket until the formation of the present club on 25 March 1879.

Essex CCC versus Leicestershire CCC at Leyton on 14, 15 & 16 May 1894 was the first first-class match for both clubs. In 1895, the County Championship was restructured into a 14-team competition with the introduction of Essex, Leicestershire and Warwickshire CCC.

Early and mid-20th century

Leicestershire's first 70 years were largely spent in lower table mediocrity, with few notable exceptions. In 1953, the motivation of secretary-captain Charles Palmer lifted the side fleetingly to third place, but most of the rest of the 1950s was spent propping up the table, or thereabouts.

Start of improvement: The late 1950s and the 1960s

Change came in the late 1950s with the recruitment of the charismatic Willie Watson at the end of a distinguished career with England and Yorkshire. Watson's run gathering sparked the home-grown Maurice Hallam into becoming one of England's best opening batsmen. In bowling, Leicestershire had an erratically successful group of seamers in Terry Spencer, Brian Boshier, John Cotton and Jack van Geloven, plus the spin of John Savage.

Another change was in the captaincy: Tony Lock, the former England and Surrey spinner who had galvanised Western Australia.

The 1970s and the first golden era

Ray Illingworth, again from Yorkshire, instilled self-belief to the extent that the county took its first ever trophy in 1972, the Benson & Hedges Cup with Chris Balderstone man of the match. This was start of the first golden era as the first of five trophies in five years and included Leicestershire's first ever County Championship title in 1975. A couple of runners up spots were also thrown in. [2]

The game when Leicestershire won their first ever County Championship, on 15 September 1975, marked something of a personal triumph for Chris Balderstone. Batting on 51 not out against Derbyshire at Chesterfield, after close of play he changed into his football kit to play for Doncaster Rovers in an evening match 30 miles away (a 1–1 draw with Brentford). Thus he is the only player to have played League Football and first-class cricket on the same day. He then returned to Chesterfield to complete a century the following morning and take three wickets to wrap up the title. To add to that season's success for Leicestershire was a second Benson & Hedges victory. [2]

The 1980s

A runners-up spot in the 1982 County Championship brought some respectability, but the decade's only silverware was in the 1985 Benson & Hedges Cup with Balderstone still on board making him the most successful trophy winner in the club's history with six. [2]

Success in the late 1990s

Leicestershire won the county championship in 1996, and again in 1998. This was an amazing achievement considering the resources of the club compared to other county teams. This Leicestershire side, led by Jack Birkenshaw and James Whitaker, used team spirit and togetherness to get the best out of a group of players who were either discarded from other counties or brought through the Leicestershire ranks.

This team did not have many stars, but Aftab Habib, Darren Maddy, Vince Wells, Jimmy Ormond, Alan Mullally and Chris Lewis all had chances for England. West Indian all-rounder Phil Simmons was also named as one of Wisden's Cricketers of the year in 1997 while playing for the club.

2000 and beyond: Twenty20 success and four-day struggles

The advent of Twenty20 cricket saw Leicestershire find a new source of success, winning the domestic T20 competition in 2004, 2006 and 2011. However, in the era of two-division County Championship cricket they have found success more difficult to come by, having not played in the top division since 2003 and been regular "wooden spoon" contenders. In 2013 and 2014 they finished without a single Championship win, the first team to achieve this unwanted feat in back to back seasons since Northamptonshire just before World War II. Recent years have seen an improvement in first-class results, and in 2023 they won their first trophy for 12 years, beating Hampshire at Trent Bridge to lift the One Day Cup.

Grounds

Current

Previous

Players

Current squad

No.NameNationalityBirth dateBatting styleBowling styleNotes
Batters
1 Sol Budinger Flag of England.svg  England 21 August 1999 (age 25)Left-handedRight-arm off break
17 Louis Kimber Flag of England.svg  England 24 February 1997 (age 27)Right-handed
23 Lewis Hill*Flag of England.svg  England 5 October 1990 (age 34)Right-handed
26 Rishi Patel Flag of England.svg  England 26 July 1998 (age 26)Right-handedRight-arm leg break
All-rounders
8 Ben Mike Flag of England.svg  England 24 August 1998 (age 26)Right-handedRight-arm fast-medium
16 Rehan Ahmed  Flag of England.svg  England 13 August 2004 (age 20)Right-handedRight-arm leg break England central contract
22 Ian Holland  Flag of the United States.svg  United States 3 October 1990 (age 34)Right-handedRight-arm fast-medium UK Passport
80 Liam Trevaskis Flag of England.svg  England 18 April 1999 (age 25)Left-handed Slow left-arm orthodox
Wicket-keepers
7 Ben Cox Flag of England.svg  England 2 February 1992 (age 32)Right-handed
28 Harry Swindells Flag of England.svg  England 21 February 1999 (age 25)Right-handed
54 Peter Handscomb  Flag of Australia (converted).svg  Australia 26 April 1991 (age 33)Right-handedOverseas player
Bowlers
18 Matt Salisbury Flag of England.svg  England 18 April 1993 (age 31)Right-handedRight-arm fast-medium
19 Sam Wood Flag of England.svg  England 11 September 2004 (age 20)Left-handedRight-arm fast-medium
20 Josh Hull  Flag of England.svg  England 20 August 2004 (age 20)Left-handedLeft-arm fast-medium England development contract
31 Chris Wright*Flag of England.svg  England 14 July 1985 (age 39)Right-handedRight-arm fast-medium
43 Alex Green Flag of England.svg  England 24 February 2007 (age 17)Right-handedRight-arm fast-medium
49 Roman Walker Flag of Wales (1959-present).svg  Wales 6 August 2000 (age 24)Right-handedRight-arm fast-medium
88 Tom Scriven Flag of England.svg  England 18 November 1998 (age 26)Right-handedRight-arm fast-medium

Former captains

International players

Members of the 2007 squad warming up Leicestershire CCC squad 2007.jpg
Members of the 2007 squad warming up

Records

Most first-team winners medals for Leicestershire

Batting

Best partnership for each wicket (county championship)

Bowling

Fielding

Sub Academy

The Leicestershire Sub Academy is designed for young cricketers who have potential to play at the highest level. It is also called the EPP (Emerging Player Programme). Many players who are involved in this set up move on to the LCCC academy, where they will play matches against academies from other counties.

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References

  1. ACS (1982). A Guide to First-Class Cricket Matches Played in the British Isles. Nottingham: ACS.
  2. 1 2 3 "Queen of the South FC - Official website". Qosfc.com. Retrieved 4 May 2013.
  3. "The Home of CricketArchive". Cricketarchive.com. Retrieved 4 May 2013.
  4. "The Home of CricketArchive". Cricketarchive.com. Retrieved 4 May 2013.

Further reading