Durham Cricket Lead High Performance Coach James Franklin has named an unchanged squad of 13 for Durham’s penultimate home Vitality Blast fixture of the season.
Durham host Leicestershire Foxes at Emirates Riverside on Friday at 6:30pm and will he looking to put Wednesday night’s disappointing result against Northamptonshire Steelbacks behind them.
Durham slipped to 4th in the North Group following their 4th loss of the competition, and with Yorkshire losing to Birmingham Bears, the table looks even tighter. Durham now sit on 11 points two points behind Yorkshire in second spot.
Harry Crawshaw and Jack Campbell made their Durham T20 debuts on Thursday and both remain in the squad for Friday, while Liam Trevaskis is not available due to coming into close contact with a positive Covid-19 case.
Leicestershire currently sit at the foot of the North Group table, five points adrift of the top four with four group games remaining with Quarter Final qualification now looking slim.
Squad vs Leicestershire Foxes (2 July)
Cameron Bancroft*, David Bedingham, Scott Borthwick, Harry Crawshaw, Jack Campbell, Graham Clark, Brydon Carse, Sean Dickson, Ned Eckersley, Matthew Potts, Stuart Poynter, Ben Raine, Ben Stokes
Words from James Franklin on Northampton Steelbacks
“We were pretty much behind the game all the way. To be fair we kept them to a score which was achievable.
“After the Powerplay we were staring down the barrel of a massive score but we managed to drag it back in the middle overs and held them to a score we thought we could chase down but we got blown away in our batting Powerplay.
“That is where the game has been won and lost; their batting Powerplay and our batting Powerplay. We didn’t get either of those right at all. Spin came into play. Borthwick bowled beautifully for us and then White and Nabi were a significant difference.
“It is a positive side for us as a team that we keep persevering and get better but I am very disappointed with our batting performance. We haven’t had many bad batting performances in our T20 campaign but we can certainly say tonight was far off the mark for us.”
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.
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 YouTube channel.
Tickets
Tickets can be bought from Gate 2 on match day priced at £20 for adults and £5 for a child. Tickets can be bought from the box office until 3pm on match day, by calling 0191 387 1717 or by visiting Emirates Riverside.