Northamptonshire Steelbacks Match Preview - 12/8/21

The Running Foxes bring their 2021 Royal London Cup group stage to a close with an away fixture at Northamptonshire’s County Ground.

Leicestershire head into it knowing that a victory will put them in with a chance of either a home or away quarter final tie to look forward to.

Equally, despite a victory in Northamptonshire, if results elsewhere do not go in our favour then we will fall short.

Northamptonshire’s one day campaign effectively came to an end with defeat to Notts Outlaws on Tuesday, August 10, but will be looking to break Foxes’ hearts tomorrow.

Last Time We Met

The two teams met just over two years ago at the Uptonsteel County Ground on the Saturday, May 4, 2019, with our visitors, Northamptonshire, winning by 29 runs.

With Alex Wakely winning the toss and choosing to bat, Northamptonshire hit 290-6 from their 50 overs with Rob Keogh (102, 85b) and Ben Curran (69, 68b) getting them to a defendable total after early wickets reduced them to 104-4 after 25 overs. Mohammad Abbas (2-55) and Callum Parkinson (1-51) impressed with the ball for the Running Foxes.

In reply, Leicestershire got off to a tough start with the early wickets of Harry Dearden, George Munsey and Mark Cosgrove seeing us reduced to 47-3 after 16 overs, but some resistance from the middle and lower order - despite no player passing 50 - saw us fall 29 runs short. Ben Mike (41, 29b) and Callum Parkinson (39, 27b) did their best to get us to close to the target. Former Fox Nathan Buck (3-44) was the pick of the Northamptonshire bowlers.

Leicestershire are likely to field just two players from that match, with Lewis Hill and Ben Mike in contention to feature on Thursday.

Head to Head

Louis Kimber v Rob Keogh

Both players have tended to feature around the number 5/6 role for their respective teams this season in the Royal London Cup, and the talented Louis Kimber, still just 24 years of age, broke the back of a huge chase against Somerset on Tuesday with a magnificent 85 from 57 balls in support of a captain’s innings from Lewis Hill (107, 106b). 

Anyone who watched our win over Derbyshire earlier in the season in the Vitality Blast will be under no illusion of Kimber’s power, which naturally translates into six-hitting ability. He hit five sixes against Somerset and Marchant de Lange in particular will be having nightmares about Kimber following that match.

Opposition batter Rob Keogh’s talents will be well known to the Foxes coaching staff after that ton against us in 2019 and he also hit an unbeaten half-century (50, 29b) against us in a losing cause in the Blast this year as well. The Northamptonshire man averages a shade over 32 in List A cricket, at a strike rate of almost 90, and after several strong performances against Leicestershire in recent years, will be a key wicket for our bowlers.

Leicestershire Foxes Squad

Head Coach Paul Nixon keeps an unchanged 14 from the victory over Somerset on Tuesday.

Leicestershire Foxes from 14: Rehan Ahmed, Ed Barnes, Will Davis, Sam Evans, Gavin Griffiths, Lewis Hill (C), Louis Kimber, Arron Lilley, Ben Mike, Rishi Patel, George Rhodes, Scott Steel, Harry Swindells (wk), Roman Walker