Razzaq helps Leicestershire to rare home win

Leicestershire boosted their hopes of a place in the quarter-finals of the Friends Life t20 with their first home win in the competition for two years, beating Worcestershire by 19 runs at Grace Road.

The Foxes produced a superb performance in the field to peg the Royals to 132 for 7 after setting them a victory target of 152. Pakistan all-rounder Abdul Razzaq took 2 for 16 in his four overs and left-arm spinner Claude Henderson 2 for 29 as the home side cemented second place in the North group.

After being put in to bat, Leicestershire posted 151 for 8 from their 20 overs, with veteran Paul Nixon top scoring with a gritty innings of 44 to lead a recovery after his side had slumped to 58 for 5 in the eighth over.

Josh Cobb gave his side a good start, hitting 30 off 16 balls with five boundaries before slicing a catch to third man off the bowling of Gareth Andrew. But wickets then began to tumble as the Foxes struggled against the spin of Saeed Ajmal and Bangladesh all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan.

Runs were hard to come by until Nixon and Razzaq joined forces in a sixth-wicket stand of 54 in nine overs. Razzaq hit two sixes off Daryl Mitchell and Nixon also cleared the ropes off a delivery from Jack Shantry.

When Nixon was stumped off Ajmal and Razzaq caught off Andrew the innings stuttered again, before skipper Matthew Hoggard struck a six and a four off the last two deliveries off Ajmal. Ajmal finished with 3 for 31.

Splendid bowling from Razzaq and Harry Gurney saw the Royals struggle to 24 for two in their six overs of Powerplay and Leicestershire never lost their grip on the game from that point on.

James Cameron top scored with 36, Moeen Ali made 32 and Mitchell 23, but the visitors could never get ahead of the rate and finally needed 30 off the final over of the game, which duly proved impossible.