Lewis Goldsworthy Takes Three Before Rain Forces Abandonment
Fri 5 Jul 2024
By Jon Culley | ECB Reporters' Network
No result - One point each. Nottinghamshire Outlaws 175-7 (17 overs) v Leicestershire Foxes
Persistent rain frustrated Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire at Trent Bridge, wrecking what was shaping up as a good contest after Joe Clarke’s 79 off 41 balls helped the home side to 175 for five before the bad weather that had already led three Vitality Blast matches to be abandoned without a ball bowled arrived in Nottingham.
Clarke, the Nottinghamshire captain, hit four sixes and 10 fours as he went past fifty for the first time this season, backed up by 39 off 21 balls by England’s Ben Duckett in his first Blast appearance for two years and an unbeaten 26 off 15 balls from Liam Patterson-White.
Lewis Goldsworthy, the left-arm spinner on loan from Somerset, was the pick of the Foxes bowlers, taking three for 36 from four overs.
With three overs of their innings remaining when the umpires took the players off the field, Nottinghamshire were poised to post a 200-plus total for the first time this year against a depleted Leicestershire attack in which 19-year-old seamer Sam Wood was making his senior debut for the county.
The Foxes are missing a raft of first-team players - including their Australian skipper Peter Handscomb and England’s Rehan Ahmed - through injury and have also lost all-rounders Wiaan Mulder and Ian Holland to Major League Cricket franchises.
International all-rounders Jimmy Neesham and Paul Stirling came in for their Foxes debuts, with seamer Roman Walker given his first Blast appearance since Leicestershire were at Trent Bridge in the competition last July.
If it had been a bad day for one Rishi, it was less so for another, with the Foxes’ Rishi Patel, who topped the polls in three player-of-the-year awards at Grace Road last year, named as captain for the first time.
The home crowd were hoping to get a first look at the Afghanistan left-arm seamer Fazalhaq Farooqi, the leading wicket-taker in the recent T20 World Cup after his nation’s historic run to the semi-finals, who has joined the Outlaws for the second half of their Blast programme.
Umpires Neil Mallender and Naseem Ashraf waited as long as they could before making a decision, mindful that a Foxes innings as short as five overs would constitute a match under competition rules. A brief break in the rain gave rise to hopes of an 8.45pm restart and a revised Duckworth Lewis Stern target for Leicestershire of 181 from 16 overs, but those hopes were quickly dashed.
The abandonment was a blow for the Outlaws in particular. After starting this season’s Blast with a five-match losing streak, they have been left needing to win most if not all of their remaining matches if they are to qualify for the quarter-finals.
It was less damaging for the Foxes, the three-times champions, who remain in contention to clinch a place in the last eight from the North Group for the first time since 2021.
