Grace Road cricket
ground,Leicester.
The pavilion end.
The Bennett Road end.
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.
Honours
Second XI honours
+ 1 Bain Hogg Trophy - 2nd 11 one day competition - 1996
Earliest cricket
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.
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.
20th century
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.
A change in fortunes: The 60s and 70s
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.
However, the change that finally brought success was in the
captaincy: first
Tony Lock, the former
England and
Surrey
spinner who had galvanised
Western
Australia, took the team to the unprecedented position of
runners-up in the Championship; then his successor,
Ray Illingworth, again from Yorkshire,
instilled self-belief to the extent that the county took its first
title in 1975.
Success in the late 90s
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.
Recent decline of 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.
The Future of the club
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.
Grounds
Current
Previous
- Bath Grounds
, Ashby-de-la-Zouch (1912 - 1964)
- Fox and Goose Ground
, Coalville (1913 - 1914)
- Town Ground
, Coalville (1950)
- Snibston Colliery Ground
, Coalville (1957 - 1982)
- Ashby
Road
, Hinckley (1911 - 1937)
- Coventry Road
, Hinckley (1951 - 1964)
- Leicester Road
, Hinckley (1981 - 1991)
- Aylestone Road, Leicester (1901 - 1962)
- Brush Ground
, Loughborough (1953 - 1965)
- College Ground
, Loughborough (1928 - 1929)
- Park Road
, Loughborough (1913 - 1970)
- Egerton Park
, Melton
Mowbray (1946 - 1948)
Players and Officials
Leicestershire Squad
Players with international caps are listed in
bold.
Notable Players
England
Australia
India
New Zealand
Pakistan
South Africa
West Indies
Zimbabwe
Members of the current squad warming
up
Records
Most first-class runs for Leicestershire
Qualification - 18000 runs
[119889]
Most first-class wickets for Leicestershire
Qualification - 800 wickets
[119890]
Batting
Best Partnership for each wicket (county
championship)
- 1st - 390 B.Dudleston & J.F.Steele v Derbyshire Leicester
1979
- 2nd - 289* J.C.Balderstone & D.I.Gower v Essex Leicester
1981
- 3rd - 316* W.Watson & A.Wharton v Somerset Taunton
1961
- 4th - 290* P.Willey & T.J.Boon v Warwickshire Leicester
1984
- 5th - 322 B.F.Smith & P.V.Simmons v Nottinghamshire Worksop
1998
- 6th - 284 P.V.Simmons & P.A.Nixon v Durham
Chester-le-Street 1996
- 7th - 219* J.D.R.Benson & P.Whitticase v Hampshire
Bournemouth 1991
- 8th - 195 JWA Taylor & JKH Naik v Derbyshire Leicester
2009
- 9th - 160 R.T.Crawford & W.W.Odell v Worcestershire
Leicester 1902
- 10th - 228 R.Illingworth & K.Higgs v Northamptonshire
Leicester 1977
Bowling
Fielding
- Most Dismissals in an innings: 7 by Neil Burns vs Somerset at Grace Road in
2001.
- Most Dismissals in a Match: 10 by Percy
Corrall vs Sussex at Hove in 1936.
Leicestershire Facts and Feats
- Leicestershire Foxes are the only Twenty20 side to win the
competition more than once.
- When Leicestershire dismissed Northamptonshire CCC for 211 in August
1967 all ten wickets fell to catches - by ten different fielders.
The only man not to take a catch, Jack
Birkenshaw, took three wickets.
- Sam Coe made 252* in four hours without
giving a chance against Northamptonshire at Leicester in 1914, a
Leicester record which stood for over 70 years. He was an ancestor
of fast bowler Les Taylor and is notable
for being the first man ever dismissed by a Bernard Bosanquet googly.
References
External sources
Further reading
- H S Altham, A History of
Cricket, Volume 1 (to 1914), George Allen & Unwin,
1962
- Derek Birley, A Social History
of English Cricket, Aurum, 1999
- Rowland Bowen, Cricket: A
History of its Growth and Development, Eyre &
Spottiswoode, 1970
- Roy Webber, The Playfair Book of
Cricket Records, Playfair Books, 1951
, Oakham
in 1906.
.
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