Date-stamped : 03 Sep96 - 22:31 =================================>Day 1 Evans is chief irritation to Leics progress By Christopher Martin-Jenkins at Trent Bridge First day of four: Notts (320-9) v Leicestershire IT was not only the absence of Alan Mullally with a knee injury, and the whispers that he is demanding big money to renew his contract, which disturbed the progress of Leicestershire yesterday towards a championship title which no objective follower would begrudge them. There were some irritations on the field against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge and they will need to bat at their best today if they are to make the most of the absence of Chris Cairns. Leicestershire gained maximum bowling points but they could have done without a determined partnership of 107 for the sixth wicket between Kevin Evans and Chris Tolley, both showing the benefits of useful innings against Kent in the previous match. Leicestershire`s successes, indeed, after Nottinghamshire had chosen two spinners and won the toss, came in short bursts, with periods in between when they needed all their patience and an abundant team spirit. Using six bowlers themselves, including the off-breaks of Adrian Pierson and the left-arm orthodox spin of Matthew Brimson, they twice took wickets with successive balls and then removed Tolley for 40 and Evans for 71 in the space of four overs either side of tea. However, they came up against another stubborn partnership of 56 for the eighth wicket between Richard Bates and Wayne Noon. Even the new ball would not shift the Nottinghamshire wicketkeeper as David Millns and Phil Simmons bowled too short. They should soon be able, however, to turn their attentions to batting and the first-innings lead which will be required on a pitch certain to turn more and more. Used for the one-day international on Sunday, it is a fair one, unless you view it from the stand-point of a very fast bowler. Easy- paced, it offered a little movement off the seam, occasional variations on a theme of true bounce, and some as yet gentle turn for the spinners. The ball swung a little too on a still, rather heavy day, which had freshened and lightened by the evening. Leicestershire deserve that sort of help in their attempt on a second title, and their first since 1975 when Raymond Illingworth was middle-aged. Under Jack Birkenshaw`s dedicated management and James Whitaker`s committed leadership, they would be showing a clean pair of heels to the rest by now if they had added one more wicket to the 19 they took against Hampshire and Glamorgan. Despite Mullally`s absences for England they have used only 13 players all season in the championship and it shows as much in the fun they seem to be having as in their now familiar `male-bonding` huddle after each wicket is taken. Mullally`s request for a rumoured #350,000 next year is, however, worrying, in the context of other such requests from those who have made it into the larger huddle inside the England camp. On one hand one sees the point of view taken by Mullally, Ian Salisbury and others, both that they have a right to the same sort of salaries as overseas players and also to make some hay while the sun is out for them. On the other, if Mullally remains in the England side he will not play very often for Leicestershire next year either. Nor is Phil Simmons yet certain to return. He has not yet signed another two-year contract, partly because there is talk of next year`s Caribbean season stretching until June. Birkenshaw speaks warmly of Simmons`s contributions with bat and ball, but he speaks well of all his players, from Vince Wells at No 1, who must be worthy of an A tour for England, late developer though he is; to Adrian Pierson, whose victims yesterday were three of Nottinghamshire`s four highest scorers. Millns had taken the first wicket early when Paul Pollard, replacing the ill Ashley Metcalfe, edged to first slip, but Graham Archer hit some fine shots through the offside before top-edging a cut to cover, whereupon Tim Robinson was caught behind off Simmons`s next ball. Paul Johnson, nearing the end of a tough first season as captain in which five Notts players have been discarded, helped his side to 107 for three at lunch, and Matthew Dowman also batted with an air of welcome conviction. Three overs into the afternoon, however, he called his captain for a quick single to cover, where Duncan Maddy swooped for a predatory run-out. Immediately Brimson got a ball to turn and stop and Dowman chipped it to mid-on off the back foot. There the huddles came to an abrupt halt for a time. Evans has always been an effective all-round cricketer and he played the bowling on its merits on the way to his highest score of the season. Tolley also timed the ball well and it was not until he had hit seven fours and batted for two hours that he played on to Pierson in the over before tea. Pierson followed up by claiming Evans leg before, half- forward, but Bates and Noon in turn timed the ball nicely until Simmons picked up a neat slip catch and then allowed Nixon, with a fine leg-side catch, to make up for a couple of missed chances earlier in an evenly- fought day. Source :: The Electronic Telegraph Date-stamped : 04 Sep96 - 22:36 =================================>Day 2 Whitaker keeps Leics in hunt By Christopher Martin-Jenkins at Trent Bridge Second day of four: Leics (341-5) lead Notts (324) by 17 runs NOTTINGHAMSHIRE have an ordinary attack and less incentive to win but they certainly made their neighbours earn their first- innings advantage yesterday. A fourth hundred of the season for Vince Wells and a determined James Whitaker ensured that Leicestershire`s first objective of maximum bonus points will be achieved, but somebody is going to have to bowl very well on a lifeless pitch if the red fox is to keep ahead of the hounds. Whitaker`s 116 not out was an innings of admirable resolution. It took him 4.25 hours to add to the hundreds scored already this year against Derbyshire, Worcestershire and, most pleasing of all, Yorkshire, when he made it a double for good measure. But, Wells apart, the others found ways of getting themselves out and it was necessary for the skipper to grit his teeth. He has 15 fours so far to show for five hours at the crease, most either pulled or driven through the covers in that neat, balanced method of his. He scored only 45 between lunch and tea, having survived a confident shout for a catch behind the wicket off Andy Afford when he had scored 31. Afford himself might, on a lucky day, have clung on to a fierce caught and bowled chance three runs later, but he scarcely deserved more than his one wicket, acquired when he bowled Gregor Macmillan leg stump late in the day, because he bowled for the most part over the wicket to a six-three leg-side field. A left-arm spinner of Afford`s accuracy can be more ambitious than this, surely. It says much for the paucity of his county`s bowling resources that he is, with 44 championship dismissals, the leading wicket-taker. No doubt the amiable Afford would say that it also says much about the deadness of the Trent Bridge square, but his spinning partner, Richard Bates, bowled to more orthodox fields yesterday and by flighting the ball nicely looked the more likely to get wickets through misjudgments of length. This, indeed, was how he broke a steady opening partnership between Wells and Darren Maddy, who played a little too early and was caught at short midwicket. Wells, sturdy and uncomplicated, was by now starting to assert himself after some early problems against Mark Bowen, who put the new ball in the right place once Gordon Parsons had claimed Wayne Noon leg before with the third ball of the day. Like his captain, Wells scored mainly with pulls and cover drives. He popped back a low chance to Bowen when he had made 10 but otherwise gave no chances in a vigorous 234-minute innings in which he struck 19 fours. It was something of a surprise when he sliced a drive to cover to give Matthew Dowman his first first-class wicket because his previous centuries this season have been 200, 197 and 204. Dowman was bowling his medium pacers only because Kevin Evans had retired to the dressing-room with a hip strain, leaving Nottinghamshire in a still more exposed position. At 260 for two they would certainly have settled for the close-of-play deficit of 17, especially if they had known that Ben Smith, after a crisp and confident innings of 24, would give Dowman a low caught-and- bowled and that Phil Simmons would drag a back- foot force off the worthy Bowen on to his stumps. Whitaker was not so charitable. It is 10 years since his tour to Australia - he is one of the few who can claim never to have finished on a losing England side - and he would be an ideal captain of the A tour there this winter. Source :: The Electronic Telegraph =================================>Day 3 Millns traps Notts in Leics force field By Christopher Martin-Jenkins at Trent Bridge Third day of four: Notts (324 & 189-8) lead Leics (439) by 74 runs WHAT a wonderful game is cricket when the force is with you, or, more to the point, with your team. The `energy circles` which Leicestershire create as they link arms at the fall of each wicket microwaved Nottinghamshire`s batting into a sorry little frazzle at Trent Bridge yesterday and they collapsed from 98 for two to 147 for eight. There the human batteries began to wear a little and Chris Tolley was able, so to speak, to cobble together the basis of a possible Nottinghamshire revival. The pitch, however, is still stable enough for Leicestershire to score whatever runs are necessary today. Needing two more wickets, they are only 74 behind, a position which gives James Whitaker`s cheerful band a virtual guarantee of either first or second place in the championship table when the penultimate round of matches starts next Thursday. There was a time on a bright and beautiful evening when David Millns, launching his military frame at fragile batting with customary uninhibited vigour from the Radcliffe Road End, and Adrian Pierson, reeling them in like a particularly long-legged spider from his web at the other, looked capable of finishing the job inside three days. Tolley, however, withstood some hostile stuff from Phil Simmons, thus emphasising that 13 wickets on one day on a pitch as easy- paced as this one was about five too many. Leicestershire managed a lead of 115 in the end, despite losing their captain to the new ball. He had added two more fours when he got an inside edge as he drove at a wide half-volley from Tolley. In the continued absence of Kevin Evans, it was Tolley who also picked up Millns, pushing to midwicket, though Mark Bowen bowled the more awkward spell. Bowen had to wait until after lunch for the wicket he deserved but by then Leicestershire had found someone, as they usually have this season, to get the runs they needed. Their top eight have scored hundreds and though Gordon Parsons is not among them - he has, indeed, scored almost 7,000 runs in first-class cricket without having made a century - he knew what was needed. Some well-timed straight drives and meaty pulls took him to his second fifty of the season before Richard Bates claimed him at silly-point. Andy Afford had also got a ball or two to turn, bowling Paul Nixon as he swung across the line, which can only have encouraged Whitaker. After all, unlike the captain of Derbyshire, the only county who could maintain their lead over Leicestershire if both win today, he has two serviceable spin bowlers. Millns knocked out Paul Pollard`s middle stump in his second over with a swinging ball of full length, but Graham Archer and Tim Robinson then provided some genuinely stiff resistance. It says something for Archer`s solidity that it was Robinson, who never gives it away, who looked the more likely to go first. The nearest of three escapes came when Nixon, diving far to his right, could not hold on to a rapid edge off the genuinely hostile Millns but instead it was Archer, bowled on the back foot by Simmons, who went first, and after tea the wickets fell in a rush. Johnson played an un- worthy little shovel shot, Dowman was caught at slip propping forward, Noon was caught at short-leg and Evans, hooking, was brilliantly caught over the shoulder by Darren Maddy, running from short to square-leg. The unluckiest dismissal, however, was Robinson`s. Having just reached 50 with his sixth four, he lost sight of a ball from Millns from round the wicket, ducked and was hit full toss on the roll of his pad. Source :: The Electronic Telegraph =================================>Day 4 Party begins on happy note for Leicestershire By Christopher Martin-Jenkins at Trent Bridge Leics (439 & 82-4) bt Notts (324 & 196) by 6 wkts ALTHOUGH they lost four wickets in making the 82 they needed, Leicestershire duly wrapped up Nottinghamshire by lunchtime yesterday. It left them plenty of time to get dressed up for last night`s annual party for players, wives and girl-friends in a local restaurant. By tradition it is held before the end of the season but there can seldom have been such a mood of optimism at the club as there was among the 50 or so gathered together last night. Leicestershire were runners-up to Warwickshire two seasons ago but by this late stage their challenge had faded. Now they go into their last two games, away to Durham next week and at home to Middlesex the next, full of running and genuine hope. "It`s exciting," James Whitaker, their captain, said after his forthright 30 not out had made sure that David Millns` five for 31 would not be wasted. "We shall just keep on playing positive cricket. To have bowled Nottinghamshire out twice on a flat pitch was a fantastic effort without Alan Mullally." Even allowing for a flat performance by Nottinghamshire themselves, he was not exaggerating. Millns confirmed his reputation as one of the unluckiest fast bowlers not to have gained an England cap. His 64 wickets this season have taken his career haul to 398 at 28, an average better than, among others, Mullally, Devon Malcolm, Chris Lewis, Darren Gough, Simon Brown and Peter Martin. It is ironic that Millns should have started his career at Trent Bridge and those who took the decision to let him move must feel a bit like the base Indian in Othello who `threw a pearl away, richer than all his tribe". It is, however, Mullally, not Millns, for whom Nottinghamshire are likely to make a serious bid, given the laconic Anglo- Australian`s apparent reluctance so far to sign a new contract. Chris Cairns has committed himself to Nottinghamshire for two more years but he was missed in this game and Andy Pick`s absence after a hernia operation left a somewhat toothless attack, for all Mark Bowen`s well- directed efforts, which earned him three more wickets yesterday. Mullally is expected to be back for the last two matches after treatment on a ruptured blood vessel in a knee, and Whitaker is not worried by the rumour that Alan Ormrod`s stated intention to strengthen the Nottinghamshire fast bowling might lead to discussions with Mullally. "I`m confident Alan will be at Grace Road next year. We`ve worked well together; we like each other and I`m sure the club will do everything possible to keep him." No doubt they will, without perhaps going all the way towards doubling his current salary of around 25,000. Test and County Cricket Board compensation of some 18,000 for his appearances for England this season has effectively paid most of his wage bill, so it will cut only so much ice with Mullally that Leicestershire are not a rich club. Their membership is small; their ground, for all its modernisations, is still considered unfashionable; and only Whitaker, Mullally and Phil Simmons have played Test cricket, but if there were to be any division of counties on merit, Leicestershire would have to start in the first. In the last four years, their lowest finishing position has been ninth. A point ahead of Surrey with two matches to go, the chances remain reasonable that this time they will be champions. Source :: Electronic Telegraph Contributed by The Management (help@cricinfo.com)