Sabres squeeze home to victory at Grace Road

Somerset's young guns played their part in helping the Sabres to victory over Leicestershire Foxes at Grace Road this evening.

Batting first the Foxes were soon in trouble against an opening attack of seventeen year old Michael Parsons and Matt Bulbeck who made the early breakthrough for the Sabres when he dismissed Trevor Ward and Darren Stevens without a run on the board.

Darren Maddy and skipper Ian Sutcliffe recovered the situation somewhat and took the Foxes onto 54 before Maddy was out for 20.

Sutcliffe continued the recovery and remained unbeaten at the end of the 45 overs by which time he had made 104 and Leicester Foxes had reached 215 for 9.

Bulbeck was the pick of the Sabres bowlers ending with 3 for 39, whilst slow left armer Arul Suppiah snapped up two wickets in one over before Sutcliffe attacked his final but still ended with 2 for 36 from his six overs.

When Somerset batted Jamie Cox was in fine form and together with Piran Holloway took the score onto 60 before the Cornishman was out for 8. Cox meanwhile continued to plunder and brought up his own fifty, which included 9x4, but next ball was caught by Trevor Ward off Maddy for 52.

Matt Wood and Keith Dutch saw the Sabres past the hundred but on 108 Wood was bowled by Maddy and one run later the Leicester all rounder also accounted for Dutch for 22.

From being 90 for 1 the Sabres had slipped to 109 for 4, and a lot depended upon Keith Parsons and Peter Bowler.

The seasoned campaigners steadied the situation for their side and took the score onto 201 before Parsons was caught at mid on for 45, after the pair had added 92 for the fifth wicket.

Despite losing Bowler on 207 and Suppiah on the same score Trego eventually reached the target with four balls to spare to see the Sabres home to a three wicket victory.