England celebrates while Bears mourn
On a day when the nation's sporting hopes were buoyed by events in South Africa, the Bears slumped to their third defeat of the FP t20 competition.
England's footballers put a spring back in the step of sports fans across the country as they beat Slovenia 1-0 and joined the big guns in the knock-out stages of the FIFA World Cup. Despite the cricket not starting until 5.40, gates at Edgbaston had been open from 2.30 allowing Bears supporters to warm up their voices with a spot of footy before their team took on the Leicestershire Foxes.
Unfortunately the cheers were mostly for the visitors who, having won the toss, came out all guns blazing and dispatched the Warwickshire bowlers to all corners of the ground. It was an impressive display from a team coming off the back of three defeats in a row, but they had obviously been inspired by the afternoon's achievements and were determined to follow suit.
Australian Brad Hodge chose this game to return to form and his top score of 54 included two solid partnerships of 71 with Jacques du Toit (40) and 73 with Will Jefferson (50). Jefferson's innings included sixes in four consecutive offers and offered little respite to the home side who must have thought they had made a breakthrough when du Toit was stumped by Tim Ambrose off the wily spin of Imran Tahir.
Thankfully, the end of Jefferson's onslaught (caught at deep square leg) did provide a bit of impetus for the Bears who took four wickets (three for Keith Barker) for 20 runs and prevented the opposition from reaching that hallowed 200 runs. The Foxes ended their 20 overs on 172-6.
Almost immediately this target seemed a long way off for the hosts who, for the second match in a row, lost Jonathan Trott for single figures after a television replay proved James Taylor's low catch to be valid. But, the pain was not over for the Bears. In true Gary Pratt (remember him?) style, Foxes' substitute Matthew Boyce showed why fielding is crucial in this format of the game with three, yes three, run outs and a subsequent Man of the Match award.
Of the top order, only Darren Maddy managed to get into double figures, with 20 from 13 balls, so it was left to the second half of the line-up to mastermind the charge. Had it not been for Claude Henderson, who struck thrice in quick succession, the outlook could have been very different, but as it was, the last-wicket pairing of Barker (23 not out) and Tahir (11) were left with too much to do. They did manage to pull 33 runs out of the bag – Barker was joint top-scorer with Ian Westwood – but Henderson (this time with the catch) was once again in the mix and the team found themselves all out for 140, 32 short.
