Azad delighted with opening day win

Hassan Azad was delighted with the start made by Leicestershire Foxes in the Quarantine Cup opener at Surrey this evening.

The Foxes dominated in all three areas of the game with accurate bowling, big-hitting and some excellent fielding led by Harry Dearden.

It meant that Azad, who was volunteering his time for The Cricketer, recorded a four-wicket victory with a staggering three overs to spare - the perfect start for the Foxes.

“I thought we came out of the blocks nicely,” Azad said afterwards. “We stuck to our plans really nicely and got the batsmen to make some mistakes.

“We came into the tournament really well prepared. The pre-season went really nicely for us, and we knew what was expected of us coming into this fixture.

“As the season goes on there will be other teams who might have been rusty starting off, who will get into their stride. I’m backing ourselves to get through.

“It comes down to how mentally prepared you are. Credit to the boys, they had their heads on from the start and delivered when it mattered.”

Sophia Dunkley accepted that she had been well below par as Surrey struggled from the outset.

“We were a bit too tentative at the start, lost too many early wickets and were on the back foot from the get-go,” she said. “Maybe there was a little bit of nerves, the fielding placements weren’t very good at times. We can rectify that.”

On the decision to give Stoneman the new ball, Dunkley said: “We thought it would have been something different. They wouldn’t have written their notes up about that, and we might have had an element of surprise.”