Holland sets sights on title after Leicestershire end long wait for promotion

Ian Holland, Leicestershire's acting captain, says the club will celebrate their achievement of returning to the top flight of the County Championship for the first time in 22 years, but have already set their sights on cementing top spot and sealing their first piece of red-ball silverware in more than a quarter of a century.

Holland was at the crease, on 27 not out, when Leicestershire shook hands on a rain-affected draw with Gloucestershire at Grace Road on Thursday. The result put them more than 50 points clear of Derbyshire and Middlesex in third and fourth place - two teams that had earlier played out their own stalemate at Lord's - thereby guaranteeing Leicestershire at least a top-two finish. Glamorgan, 25 points behind them in second place, are their only remaining rivals for the second division crown.

"There's a lot of emotion, excitement, relief in the dressing-room," Holland told the ECB Reporters Network. "We're savouring this moment to get promoted, but it's not a full celebration just yet because now we want to win the trophy as champions.

"But, yeah, to be promoted is a great achievement for this club. It's a credit to the people in the club that have turned it around over a period of time."

The result comes just two years after Leicestershire's remarkable victory over Hampshire in the Metro Bank One-Day Cup final - their first List A trophy since 1985 - and continues a steady uptick in the team's fortunes from the dark days of the mid-2010s, when they had habitually finished bottom of the Championship table, including a near three-year run between September 2012 and June 2015 when they didn't win a single first-class fixture.

"This today isn't just a six-month thing, it's been a few years in the making," Holland said, as he paid tribute to Claude Henderson, the club's director of cricket, as well as the coaching staff and Sean Jarvis, the outgoing chief executive who oversaw the upswing in fortunes since joining from Huddersfield Town FC in 2020.

"The players have been able to go out and play the way we have this year because things are right," Holland added. "It's a great feeling. When I first met Claude and [head coach] Alfonso (Thomas), I got a sense of the trajectory that the club was moving in, and that was really attractive. I was always optimistic that we would get promoted at some stage, but I think it's probably happened a little bit quicker than we thought.

"If you'd asked me at the start of the season, are we going to get promoted this year? I wouldn't have put my house on it, but it's been great that things have clicked and we've played the cricket we have. Getting those wins early on gave us a really good head start, which has paid dividends."

Holland namechecked Rehan Ahmed, who is currently away on England duty, as one of the stars of their campaign. After initially stepping up as an auxiliary opener, he struck five hundreds in ten appearances, while also claiming 23 wickets at 19.00 with his legspin - 13 of which came in a statement victory against Derbyshire in July.

"There have been contributions from everybody. Rehan has got five hundreds, which is amazing, but so many people have stood up. I think just the consistency with the way we've played sums up our group."

The club captain Pete Handscomb, who is now back in Australia preparing for his Sheffield Shield campaign with Victoria, was another key contributor to Leicestershire's season. "He's been amazing with the way he's captained the team and the group," Holland said. "His calmness around the group has been incredible."

Leicestershire were made to battle in their title-seizing contest against Gloucestershire. They conceded a first-innings deficit of 140 despite a century for Shan Masood, but after being set a stiff fourth-innings target of 316, the week's heavy rain reduced any prospect of a tense finish to the match.

"In this game, it's a real credit to the guys the way we fought back after getting behind the game early on day one," Holland said. "There were a few niggly moments, but we were able to keep coming back, and just to get the points we needed to get promoted was a great result.

"We faced a long chase today if we were to win the game. You can't go out and go after it gung-ho, but I think you still want to have that positive intent, which we did, to take the game deep, and then whatever happens, happens. It was a good performance today to not be five, six, seven wickets down at the close. To do it the way we did was nice.

"There will be a celebration, a few beers tonight. But we want to go on and win the trophy now, that's very important to us."