Durham Cricket Lead High Performance Coach James Franklin has named an unchanged squad of 14 for Durham’s Vitality Blast fixture against Leicestershire Foxes.
Durham return to action tomorrow [Sunday 13 June] and will be looking for back-to-back wins to kick off their 2021 campaign, when they head to the Uptonsteel County Ground, Grace Road, at 2:30pm.
Durham go into tomorrow’s game on the back of an outstanding opening victory against Yorkshire Vikings, with Brydon Carse inspiring Durham to a 20 run win over a star studded Yorkshire outfit.
The Foxes have already played two games so far in this season’s campaign, losing by 16 runs in their opening game against Lancashire Lightning, before going down by 23 runs against Derbyshire Falcons on Friday night.
Squad vs Leicestershire Foxes (13 June)
Cameron Bancroft*, David Bedingham, Scott Borthwick, Jack Burnham, Brydon Carse, Jack Campbell, Graham Clark, Paul Coughlin, Sean Dickson, Ned Eckersley, Matthew Potts, Ben Raine, Matt Salisbury, Liam Trevaskis
Words from Brydon Carse
The Opposition
Coach: Paul Nixon
Captain: Colin Ackermann
Last Year’s Performance: Quarter-finalists
2020 Leading Runscorer: Aaron Lilley (278 @ 30.88)
2020 Leading Wicket Taker: Gavin Griffiths (10 @ 18.00), Callum Parkinson (10 @ 21.00).
Overseas players: Naveen-ul-Haq (Afghanistan – whole tournament), Josh Inglis (Australia – whole tournament).
Key man: Colin Ackermann – Leicestershire’s world-record holder – the only bowler to take seven wickets in a T20 innings – remains the county’s mainstay in all formats.
Flies under the radar: Gavin Griffiths – Joint leading wicket-taker in 2021, the Lancastrian pace bowler has 32 T20 wickets in four seasons since moving to the Uptonsteel County Ground.
Best Player Under 24: Naveen-ul-Haq – Only 21 years old, the Afghanistan fast bowler has already played in eight T20Is and seven ODIs. Known for his unusual action and an array of slower balls.
Blast expectations: Bottom of the North Division in 2019, Leicestershire surprised even themselves last year by almost reaching Finals Day for the first time since 2011. The Foxes squeezed into the knock-out stage with wins against Nottinghamshire and Lancashire before an unlucky exit in a low-scoring quarter-final against the eventual champions at Trent Bridge, when a last-ball misfield cruelly eliminated Leicestershire on the tie-breaker of runs scored in the Powerplay. Whether they can go one better this season remains to be seen but overseas pair Naveen-ul-Haq and Josh Inglis come with good stats in the format, while Scott Steel, their signing from Durham, had an outstanding 2019, including a 30-ball 70 against the Foxes at Grace Road. They will hope at least to be in contention.
Match Centre
The Club’s match centre will be in operation for the fixture with live scorecards, statistics & video highlights as they happen. You can watch the game live via the club’s match centre and Leicestershire County Cricket Club YouTube channel.
There will also be regular updates on Twitter, with a match report and post-match reaction on the website following the fixture.