Date-stamped : 25 Sep96 - 18:11 County Championship 1996 Leicestershire v Middlesex Grace Road, Leicester 19, 20, 21, 22 September 1996 ====> Day 1 Leicestershire reap reward for champion effort By Christopher Martin-Jenkins at Leicester First day of four: Leics (36-1) trail Middx (190) by 154 runs LEICESTERSHIRE played like champions yesterday and champions they virtually are. About 2,000 people had braved the grey, blustery weather, an achievement in itself for a club whose members seldom emerge in force for championship cricket, and they saw their team bowl Middlesex out for 190. It advanced the Leicestershire cause almost to the point of invincibility, not least because the four bowling points have put further ground between them and their pursuers. While Mullally, Millns, Simmons, Parsons and Wells were gathering their gladsome harvest, others were faltering and falling. Surrey, the nearest rivals, were watching the rain and Ceefax at the Oval, Kent were being bowled out at Bristol without gaining a single batting point and Essex, despite runs for Graham Gooch and Nasser Hussain, were being eliminated. The full bowling points were claimed through aggressive but well-directed fast bowling and faultless slip-catching on a green pitch of occasionally unreliable bounce on which Mike Gatting, after a 15-minute dressing-room conference, had chosen to bat. There were enough cars at Grace Road for late-comers to find themselves obliged to find a place outside yesterday. Some of them may be coming by train in future. Midland Mainline, the newly privatised rail service, have announced a six-figure sponsorship of the county for the next three seasons and the players will be substituting their traditional emblem of a running fox for the company`s logo of a leaping stag on their shirt pockets in future. Leaping or running, there is no denying the club`s momentum, though they were given an unwitting advantage yesterday by Gatting`s surprising decision to bat, based on the belief that the pitch was not as grassy as it looked and that, given time, it might turn. Leicestershire signalled otherwise by choosing only their regular spinner, Adrian Pierson. Aftab Habib regained his place at Gregor Macmillan`s expense, but the tightly-knit core of 13 players has duly proved sufficient for a full season`s work. There were no traces of self-doubt as David Millns and Alan Mullally let themselves go with the new ball. Paul Weekes survived a unified appeal for a catch behind from Millns`s third ball of the day but six overs later he was deftly caught at third slip by Vince Wells after Phil Simmons had parried the fierce snick high to his left. Peter Wellings, playing stoutly but inexperienced as an opener, was twice hit by lifting balls from Mullally, whose opening stint from the pavilion end became increasingly difficult to handle. Only Mark Ramprakash looked likely to withstand him for long as five more wickets fell in the morning session. Coming in at three and battling for three hours with a defensive technique which failed him only once - when 26, four overs after lunch, Paul Nixon missed a low chance wide to his right off Millns - he played uncommonly well without looking likely to turn the tide. Wellings helped him to lift the score to 50 before Mull- ally switched to round the wicket and he played on, rather unluckily, despite a solid-looking forward defensive. Gatting hit one sumptuous cover drive off Phil Simmons, but the grizzled captain was never happy against Mullally. He soon edged a ball angled across him from over the wicket and the fledgling Owais Shah was rapidly leg before to the inswinger. No sooner was Mullally rested than Wells joined the fun, claiming Keith Brown with the help of a brilliant, low right- handed catch at first slip by Simmons and Keith Dutch, lbw on the back foot. There, however, progress was halted for 23 overs and 80 runs as Richard Johnson played as correctly as he knew and Ramprakash opened out with some fierce on-side blows, two of them clearing the boundary. He fell to the perennial Gordon Parsons, driving to mid-on, but getting a leading edge as the ball straightened, and that was almost that. Middlesex in their turn got some movement off the seam and Wells was squared up by a ball from Richy Fay, but Gatting had already turned to Phil Tufnell by tea and Leicestershire will not have minded much that the last 32 overs were lost to bad light. Source :: The Electronic Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/) ====>Day 2 Simmons and Whitaker put Leics` title in bank By Christopher Martin-Jenkins at Leicester Second day of four: Leicester-shire (381-8) lead Middlesex (190) by 191 runs THE main contributors to Leicestershire`s authoritative batting performance at Grace Road yesterday were greeted by the crowd massed in front of the pavilion like horses returning to the winner`s enclosure on a big race day. This is a club which is supposed to lack atmosphere, but there was no denying the excitement off the field, nor the animation on it. On the stroke of five, half-an-hour before bad light stopped play 16 overs early, Phil Simmons lent back and hammered a ball from Paul Weekes to the cover boundary, then punched the air in jubilation. The fourth batting point thus acquired effectively guaranteed Leicestershire`s first championship since 1975 and their second ever. With maximum bonus points in the bag, a draw will now be sufficient for them and whether or not they defeat Middlesex, they are not, with a first-innings lead of 191 and rain about, going to lose. Simmons, with a typically powerful 95 not out which included three sixes, a top-edged hook and two smitten with Jessopian might over square-leg off Angus Fraser and Ricky Fay, maintained his wonderful all-round season; but it was James Whitaker`s solid batting when the ball was moving off the seam and the bowlers were fresher earlier in the day which created the platform. There were sub-plots. The first was that the only Whale machine in the country, owned by the Test and County Cricket Board and worth 35,000, had been ordered for this match by Leicestershire in early August. If Surrey, the only side now theoretically able to deny them, had had the same foresight, they would have been able to soak up the water on the Oval outfield much more quickly and their match against Worcestershire would not have started so late. The second little drama should bring to a head the growing abuse of the game by any number of left-arm slow bowlers. More than ever before this season they have been resorting to the tactic of bowling over the wicket to a packed leg-side field, leaving the batsmen with no non-hazardous scoring options. Phil Tufnell went over the wicket after only six overs yesterday afternoon and the irritation to Leicestershire was compounded when Keith Brown took up position behind the wicket a foot- and-a-half outside the leg stump. Phil Simmons apparently suggested to the umpires, Barrie Leadbeater and Peter Willey, that by standing where he was Brown was effectively acting as a third fielder behind the popping crease on the leg side, which the law forbids. After much discussion the umpires allowed him to stay there, a decision which was ratified after reference to Tim Lamb, the TCCB cricket secretary. In giving his opinion that "the wicketkeeper doesn`t count as a fielder as long he is in the first position to intercept the ball if the batsman misses it", Lamb added that the whole issue of bowling over the wicket into the rough needs to be addressed both in domestic cricket and by the International Cricket Council. In Australia, obsessed as they have been ever since Jim Laker`s series in 1956 with the perils of the leg trap, they have a limit of five fielders anywhere on the leg side, a restriction which now also applies in all one-day international cricket. There is a world of difference between off-spinners turning the ball from over the wicket to a mainly leg-side field and left-arm bowlers (whatever their pace) doing the same from over it. Tufnell`s dubious reward was to end Whitaker`s admirable 215-minute innings when he trod on his wicket attempting a late paddle-sweep which was aimed, it seemed, straight at the `keeper. Brown did not keep wicket in the morning, having dislocated a finger on the first evening. Mike Gatting took his place and Middlesex started well with Richard Johnson and Fay making successful lbw appeals against the overnight pair, both half- forward. Fay, with his direct, compact action, bowled an excellent morning spell but he had Whitaker, when he was 33, dropped behind by Gatting, ironically in front of the substitute at first slip, David Nash, a wicket- keeper himself. Aftab Habib played a sound part in the solid fourth-wicket partnership of 138 with Whitaker which turned the day. He had hit four fours and the sweetest of straight sixes when he misjudged the angle of a ball bowled by Johnson from round the wicket but David Millns played a similarly staunch supporting innings to Simmons before Fay bowled him as he drove. Source :: The Electronic Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/) ====>Day 3 Leicestershire parade model of democracy By Scyld Berry Third day of four: Middlesex (190 & 194-5) trail Leicestershire (512) by 228 runs JAMES WHITAKER was only just dry-eyed when he received the Britannic Assurance Trophy and a cheque for 65,000 on a grey Midlands evening. He had heard suddenly at the tea interval that Surrey had conceded, and that Leicestershire had won their first championship since 1975, only their second in all. Surrey pragmatically opted to aim for the runners-up place, balked by rain at the Oval, and by their lack of a match- winning spinner. Kent have been thwarted by Gloucestershire and by rain when about to beat Derbyshire, who, in turn, lost momentum when they declared a little too late at Taunton. Leicestershire have marched on, not the best 11 cricketers in the country, but the 11 playing the best cricket. From their pre-season tour of South Africa, Whitaker thought his side had a chance, and especially in June when they beat Yorkshire, who were top. Jack Birkenshaw, their cricket manager, said their spirit was "even better" than in 1975 when he had played; and highlighted their consistency, saying they had had two bad days, one against Kent, the other against Surrey in the only match they have lost. Both these virtues, the spirit and consistency, seem to have been achieved by changing the county`s whole structure. Under Nigel Briers, last year`s captain, their system was the old-fashioned hierarchical one: he gave all the orders. Under Whitaker they have adopted the new democratic model, first espoused by Warwickshire, last year`s champions, in which responsibility is delegated to the individual. Bowlers are now allowed to set their fields. Anyone can offer his suggestions when they huddle at the fall of a wicket - and as almost half of their 13 players this season have come from other counties, they have inside information to impart: which batsmen to talk to, which to ignore. Nothing malicious, in fact one of their habits is to address a new batsman by his full name, to make him pause and think. The pooling of all ideas and energies has to be right for the marathon that is the championship. In their team meetings before away games, they have discussed the right length to bowl, and they have bowled it, on a fuller length than their opponents have mostly expected, backed up by excellent catching, which goes hand in hand with high morale. What players from other counties have needed is reassurance, which Whitaker has been assured enough to give them. Even Gordon Parsons has mellowed in his 37th year, no longer cursing errant fielders, but secure in the knowledge that he will be appreciated for bowling uphill and into the wind, even if he does not take wickets. They have been called a side without stars, which they are in the sense of not having an outstanding Test cricketer, but they have the outstanding county cricketer of the season in Phil Simmons, who yesterday converted his overnight 95 into his fourth first- class hundred of the season and batted on while Alan Mullally made merry. Too stiff and bottom-handed to be a Test opener, his average for West Indies 23, the Trinidadian is a middle-order county destroyer, who consciously upped his game for the run-in. Madder and madder went the match - not to mention Mike Gatting at slip - as Simmons and Mullally added 112 in 13 overs of seam, not one of spin. Mullally hit three sixes with his golf swing, and top- edged a fourth that was blown by the strong wind over the wicketkeeper`s head and beyond. Mullally finished with 75, a career best, from only 47 balls, and led Leicestershire to their highest total against Middlesex. His highest score was 34 before this season, his career average all of seven. Such a vast improvement exactly illustrates the all-hands-to-the- pump attitude of his county team. When Middlesex began their second innings, 322 behind, and after Peter Wellings and Mark Ramprakash had completed a century stand, Simmons made the breakthrough, nipping back into Wellings for his 55th wicket of the season. He is the only player to have done the double of 1,000 runs and 50 wickets in the four-day championship. Yet he has taken two Test wickets, again illustrating the difference between Test and county cricket, as does the whole Leicestershire team. The one probem they faced was the loss of Mullally to England and a shortage of strike bowling. By taking his wickets at 17 apiece, Simmons has made good. When he held the trophy on the balcony, he poured champagne into it and drank deep. "There are no words for this feeling," he declared. After the joy of the tea-time news, the fox did not stop running. Mullally yorked Gatting all over the shop, and Owais Shah was naively rehearsing his stroke outside his crease, after being beaten by Mullally, when Paul Nixon threw down his stumps. Only Ramprakash, until beaten by a classic off-break, and bad light kept the champions in the field till today, when they may resume sore-headed. So no longer are Leicestershire the unfashionable county that they were. The pools, not patrons, saved them from penury in the Fifties. When Tony Lock took over in the mid-late 1960s, they had ended in the upper half of the table only seven times; and they and Glamorgan had supplied the fewest Test players to England. Grace Road was a mis- nomer too, for no county worries less about the airs and graces. Brick terraced houses still span its length, a bingo hall is no more than 100 yards from the ground. But roses were blossoming yesterday in the flower bed in front of the pavilion, along with their cricketers. Unpretentious perhaps, but, as the new champions, not un- fashionable any more. Source :: The Electronic Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/) ====> Day 4 Leicestershire take title with a flourish By Christopher Martin-Jenkins Leicestershire (512) bt Middlesex (190 & 248) by an innings and 74 runs IN THE end, Leicestershire won the 1996 County Championship, the second in their history and their first since 1975, without needing to beat Middlesex in their final game. At Grace Road yesterday, they won just the same, despite some freely admitted hangovers, needing only 10 overs to take the last five wickets required for a victory by an innings and 74 runs. David Millns took four for 48, thundering in with his chest thrust forward to sweep the tail away with typically combative fast bowling yesterday morning. Millns finished his season with 72 wickets and Leicestershire with their 10th win. Worse fast bowlers have played for England and lesser teams have won the championship, for all the apparent ordinariness of this one. Having already picked up full bonus points and a huge first-innings lead with a second successive championship century (and third in three innings) by Phil Simmons - he shared a last- wicket stand of 112 in 13 overs with Alan Mullally - their lead in the table had already become unassailable on Saturday afternoon when Surrey took the decision to forfeit their first innings in search of a win at the Oval. The foresight shown when, in early August, Leicestershire hired the only moisture-gobbling whale machine in the country for possible use at their final match, because they knew they might have to squeeze in as much cricket as possible, therefore proved very shrewd in an unexpected way. There was embarrassment and irritation at the Oval when it took so long to get the square dry after the rain which had washed out play on Thursday. Leicestershire`s committee had placed a 1,000 bet on their team at 25-1 and the resulting profit is expected to be enjoyed by the players. James Whitaker`s father, John, invested a considerably larger sum at the same price. The whole season has been particularly well planned by a club experienced over many years in making the most of their resources. The stories of cricketing apathy in the city of Leicester itself are true but only up to a point. Inside the rectangle of green which separates one street of red-brick, slate-roofed houses from another there had been an air of restrained excitement and imminent triumph from the first day of this final game. Yesterday there were perhaps 2,500 there to hear jubilant balcony speeches by Whitaker and Simmons. In some ways, the ground at Grace Road is typical of county cricket`s struggle to survive in a world geared to the televised international match. Too small to stage such games itself, it was improved year by year on the back of the success of Ray llingworth`s team in the 1970s under Mike Turner`s astute management. Only the curious pre-fabricated caf known as The Meet remains, shaped like a swiss roll and standing on the corner of a ground softened by trees and rose-beds. Inside misted-up windows on cold days they dispense teas and coffees in plastic cups and all sorts of `unhealthy` fare, greasy chips and the like, to an assortment of spectators who, like the building and the type of food, almost seem left over from the 1950s. The regulars watch in greater comfort from the prim and trim pavilion end. Membership has actually dropped a fraction this season - surely to rise again now - but since 1993 it has been increased by offers of cheaper terms from fewer than 3,000 to 4,800. The announcement that the team are to be belatedly sponsored for the next three seasons was timely, too. The players, although they will be the shop window for their new patrons, will not benefit directly from the six-figure sum invested but Tony Norman, the chief executive, says that it has enabled the club to be more generous with the terms offered to all the players. To win the title with 13 players required faith in the chosen few, remarkably consistent form, fitness, and a team spirit engendered by the not always completely harmonious dressing-room partnership of Whitaker and Jack Birkenshaw. `Birky` is one of the great old pros of the English county game, a veteran of the 1975 side, a good judge of a cricketer and a great believer in his team, for all his native Yorksire pessimism. Whitaker has been an unselfish, painstaking, determined captain who has used his bowling resources skilfully, made runs himself at important times and, without claiming too much for it, encouraged the bonding of individuals by linking hands with the rest of the team whenever a wicket has fallen. Energy circles? They seem to work. Simmons, Mullally, the yeoman Millns - an old-fashioned, strong, hostile fast bowler - and Vince Wells, with his sudden burst of runs, have been the outstanding individuals but it has truly been an effort to which everyone has contributed. Whitaker has encouraged openness and a positive approach: "I can`t praise them enough for going out and playing good cricket every day. I`ve tried to treat them all as responsible people, capable of getting to the nets on time and dressing smartly without having to be told. We`ve given people the freedom to go out and play, to express themselves." That, too, has worked. Source :: The Electronic Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/) Contributed by The Management (help@cricinfo.com)