WARWICKSHIRE'S humiliating departure from this competition after being bowled out for a record low total leaves the club in a state of crisis which only exacerbates the turmoil bubbling around Brian Lara's leadership.

There is little left for them in a season in which Lara has admitted: ``I know Warwickshire supporters are unused to losing games but it is not that the players aren't giving of our best.''

Lara was the subject of mild abuse from his own supporters when Warwickshire were beaten in the championship at the weekend and further barracking after yesterday's defeat but his view is: ``This is nothing new. I've experienced it all over the world - even in my own country.''

If this game was a watershed for the Edgbaston side, it was of almost as much significance for Leicestershire, who somehow had to climb back into their supporters' favour after a trouncing in the B & H Cup final less than three weeks ago.

They found their saviour in Alan Mullally, who has probably never bowled more effectively in one-day contests. His best-ever figures of 12-3-18-5 in this competition throttled Warwickshire after they had been unfortunate enough to be made to bat first on a greenish top where conditions were made even more tricky by considerable swing.

It was Mullally's dismissal of Lara that put the seal on his day. He had already dismissed Nick Knight in the game's first over, taken at second slip, followed by Neil Smith edging on to his stumps in the fifth.

Lara applied himself unremittingly to the challenge, choosing to stifle the movement of the new ball rather than attack and saw two more partners go by the time the score reached 19 for four in the 10th over.

But the shot which has brought him so many runs was finally Lara's downfall - swivelling on one foot to pull a ball outside off after he had taken 34 balls to reach 10.

Paul Nixon picked up a low diving catch on the leg side and it was to Lara's credit that he walked off without waiting for the umpire's finger after a glance behind.

Leicestershire captain Chris Lewis gave able backing with two wickets and three catches but once Mullally had bowled his full spell, the eighth-wicket partnership of Graeme Welch and Keith Piper more than doubled the Warwickshire total in a 52-run stand.

These two and Lara were the only batsmen to reach double figures in an innings which yielded a mere nine boundaries. Extras was second-top scorer, thanks largely to Phil Simmons's opening 13-ball over - five wides and two no-balls - and Warwickshire finished 11 runs short of their previous lowest in the competition, 109 against Kent 27 years ago at Canterbury.

Early on, Leicestershire had a taste of their own medicine when Darren Maddy chose to leave a ball from Ed Giddins which pitched well wide and came back quite venomously to clip off stump.

While Giddins was in the attack, Leicestershire's reply was cautious in the extreme and it took nearly eight overs for the first runs to come off the bat.

Ben Smith started to relieve the pressure but when Giddins came back up the slope, he was caught at point cutting and the responsibility of coaxing the side into the semi-finals fell principally to Iain Sutcliffe and the match was wrapped up well before tea with nearly 24 overs to spare.

Mullally, omitted from the Trent Bridge Test in favour of Angus Fraser and not figuring on the selectors' provisional one-day list, said he hoped his performance would ``sway things the other way''.