Nottinghamshire CCC Match Preview - 11/06/2022

The season so far:

There's a 61 point gap between the two teams in the LV= Insurance County Championship table in Division Two, with opponents Nottinghamshire pushing hard for top spot on 107 points, nine below leaders Middlesex.  They've picked up four wins, a draw and a defeat from their six matches.

Leicestershire have played a game more than their local rivals but are still yet to record their first victory, with three draws and four losses contributing to a current total of 46 points.

Last time we met:

The two teams last met in red ball cricket in the shortened 2020 season during the Bob Willis Trophy, in a rain-affected match which ended in a draw.

Batting first, the Running Foxes scrapped their way to 222 all out after at one stage being 25-4, with important lower-order resistance including an unbeaten half-century from Ben Mike going a long way to ensuring that we at least put a score on the board.  

Former Leicestershire loanee Ben Slater and Haseeb Hameed looked in imperious form for Nottinghamshire in their reply, before falling in the 80s, and our local neighbours declared on 343-8 with Mike continuing his impressive match taking 3-48 with the ball.

With Leicestershire facing a deficit of more than 100 runs, Notts will have felt that they could force victory when they reduced us to 36-2, but fifties from Colin Ackermann and Harry Swindells helped the Foxes bat out over 90 overs to draw the match pretty comfortably in the end.

Opposition players to watch:

Leading the way in the Nottinghamshire run-scoring charts is Ben Duckett, who has accumulated 582 runs so far this season at an average of almost 65.  The left-hander has scored one century and five fifties already this year in red-ball cricket and played an important innings in the T20 match at the UptonSteel County Ground on Friday night as well.

South African overseas player Dane Paterson has picked up 24 wickets with the ball so far with exceptional numbers.  The pace bowler is averaging a shade over 15 with the ball this season, with an economy rate of just 2.6 runs per over conceded as well.  Foxes batters will need to play Paterson well to ensure they post a big total with the bat.

Our players to watch:

Top run-scorer for Leicestershire this season is Hasan Azad (488 runs), who makes a return to the starting XI after the gap for T20 cricket.  The left-hander has impressed so far this year with a match-saving unbeaten ton against Worcestershire, and also has scored four fifties so far as well.

Ben Mike leads the wicket-taking list for Leicestershire in red ball cricket so far this season with 14, at an average of 25.78 currently.  Mike has impressed with his strike rate in 2022, requiring just 32.57 balls per wicket taken in first class cricket, making him a threat with both ball and bat for our local rivals over the coming four days.

Head Coach Paul Nixon has named a 13-man squad:

Colin Ackermann, Hassan Azad, Ed Barnes, Will Davis, Sam Evans, Lewis Hill, Louis Kimber, Ben Mike, Wiaan Mulder, Callum Parkinson *, Rishi Patel, Harry Swindells +, Chris Wright.