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| Leicestershire County Cricket Club | |||
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| One-day name: | Leicestershire Foxes | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Second XI: | Leicestershire 2nd XI | ||
| Coach: |  Tim Boon |
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| Captain: | Matthew Hoggard |
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| Overseas player(s): |  Iain O'Brien |
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| Founded: | 1879 | ||
| Home ground: | Grace Road | ||
| Capacity: | 12,000 | ||
| First-class debut: | MCC | ||
| in 1895 | |||
| at Lord's | |||
| Championship wins: | 3 | ||
| Pro40 wins: | 2 | ||
| FP Trophy wins: | 0 | ||
| Twenty20 Cup wins: | 2 | ||
| Official website: | LeicestershireCCC | ||
Leicestershire County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Leicestershire. It has also been representative of the county of Rutland.
Its limited overs team is called the Leicestershire Foxes. Their kit colours are green with yellow trim. The shirt sponsors are Oval Insurance Broking with Highcross Leicester (shopping centre) on the top reverse side of the shirt.
The club is based at Grace Road, Leicester and have also played home games at Aylestone Road in Leicester, at Hinckley, Loughborough, Melton Mowbray, Ashby-de-la-Zouch and in Coalville inside the traditional county boundaries; and at Uppingham and Oakham over the border in Rutland.
Leicestershire are in the second divisions of both the County Championship and the Pro40 one day league. They recently finished bottom of the County Championship for the first time since the introduction of two divisions. Their best showing in recent years has been in the Twenty20 Cup with the Foxes winning the trophy two times in three years.
Contents |
+ 1 Bain Hogg Trophy - 2nd 11 one day competition - 1996
Cricket may not have reached the county until well into the 18th century. A notice in the Leicester Journal dated 17 August 1776 is the earliest known mention of cricket in Leicestershire.
But it was only a few years after that before 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.
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 initial first-class match played by either club. In 1895, the County Championship was restructured into a 14-team competition with the introduction of Essex, Leicestershire and Warwickshire CCC.
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.
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.
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.
The game when Leicestershire won their first ever County Championship, on September 15 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.
A runners up spot in the 1982 County Championship brought some respectability but the decades only first class 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.
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 didn't 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.
In the ten years since the second title, Leicestershire have slipped away dramatically from the top end of county cricket. In 2003 the side were relegated from both the county championship and the limited over league. There has been no serious challenge to enter either top division since and in 2009 the club finished bottom of the county championship for the first time since xxx.
The decline can probably be attributed to three things. First of all it should be understood that they massively overachieved in the 90s. Leicestershire were fortunate to have so many players in their peak at the same time and once these players left it was always inevitable that it would be difficult to maintain the quality of cricket on show. A lot of players left within a couple of seasons of one another: some went for money; some went to further their international careers; and others retired from the sport. The replacements, especially in the seam bowler department, have struggled to match their predecessors.
Secondly, the fall from grace has also coincided with the growing importance of money in the game. Leicestershire have struggled to compete with the bigger teams, especially those who host test matches. Stuart Broad, Brad Hodge and Luke Wright have all left the club for other counties offering more money, while it has also been difficult to attract high quality players to the club. The Chairman Neil Davidson has called for a more equal share with revenue generated from international cricket but his calls have fallen on death’s ears.
Thirdly, the management of the club can not escape criticism. Their recruitment policy has been very questionable. The club has used the Kolpak ruling to bring in several South African players who were past their prime and there have been few successful overseas players at the club since Brad Hodge.
There has been no strong leadership on the field which is due in part to the management’s alienation of the club captains. The past six seasons have seen six captains picked and four of these captains were dropped from the side. HD Ackerman also resigned the captaincy after a difficult single season in charge.
There has been significant success through the Twenty20 Cup in recent years; however, some see that as little consolation when the team is doing poorly in the main competition. The foxes have failed to get out of the group stages of the T20 for the past three seasons as other teams have started to take it more seriously.
It appears as if the people who run the club have finally realised that the county is in a downward spiral and have recently made some moves to try and counter this. There are active quotas and initiatives to ensure that Leicestershire give young players as much as a chance as possible. There has also been a limit introduced by the club on how many non-English qualified players they field.
Players such as Joshua Cobb and James Taylor have excelled under the chances they’ve been given and Leicestershire have several players currently involved with England age cricket. If Leicestershire manage to keep hold of these players and build a strong spine, then their fortunes will undoubtedly change for the better.
Players with international caps are listed in bold.
| Name | Nat | Batting Style | Bowling Style | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Batsmen | |||||
| James Benning | |
RHB | RM | ||
| Matthew Boyce | |
LHB | RM | ||
| Jacques Du Toit |  |
RHB | RFM | ||
| Josh Cobb | |
RHB | LS | England U-19 player | |
| Will Jefferson | |
RHB | |||
| Greg Smith | |
RHB | SLA | ||
| James Taylor | |
RHB | LS | England U-19 player | |
| Shiv Thakor | |
RHB | RM | ||
| Wicket-keepers | |||||
| Tom New | |
RHB | RM | ||
| Paul Nixon | |
LHB | LM | ||
| Joel Pope | |
RHB | RM | ||
| Bowlers | |||||
| Nathan Buck | |
RHB | RFM | England U-19 player | |
| Sam Cliff | |
RHB | RFM | ||
| Harry Gurney | |
RHB | LFM | ||
| AJ Harris | |
RHB | RFM | ||
| Claude Henderson | |
RHB | SLA | British residence, spin bowling coach | |
| Matthew Hoggard | |
RHB | RFM | ||
| Nadeem Malik | |
RHB | RFM | ||
| Jigar Naik | |
RHB | OS | ||
| Wayne White | |
RHB | RFM | ||
| Alex Wyatt | |
RHB | RFM | ||
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England |
Australia India |
Pakistan South Africa West Indies Zimbabwe |
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Most first-class runs for Leicestershire
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Most first-class wickets for Leicestershire
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Most first team winners medal for Leicestershire
Best Partnership for each wicket (county championship)
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| | Cricket Archive Page - Leicestershire County Cricket Club |
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