Match Preview: Lancashire Lightning v Leicestershire Foxes, Vitality Blast Men
Lancashire Lightning v Leicestershire Foxes
Vitality Blast, North Group
Wednesday June 4, 2025, 6.30pm
Lancashire’s busy start to this season’s Blast continues with a clash against a Foxes side who are three-time champions of this competition - the early market leaders in T20 cricket in England.
Triumphs in 2004, 2006 and 2011, Leicestershire have struggled to challenge consistently since then, indicated by a fifth-placed finish in last season’s North Group.
Lancashire have won three on the spin at the start of this competition since Thursday’s opening day.
Interim head coach Steven Croft and co will be confident of building on victories over Worcestershire, Nottinghamshire and, most recently on Sunday up at the Riverside by four wickets, Durham.
James Anderson was one of their heroes in that fixture, claiming a superb 3-17 in his first T20 appearance since 2014, limiting Durham to 150-6 before the target was chased off the last ball thanks mainly to 55 from Michael Jones against his former county.
Leicestershire have won one and lost one at the start of this season’s Blast. They beat Derbyshire at home on Friday and were beaten at Northamptonshire on Sunday.
This is the second part of a double header day with Lancashire’s women, who face Hampshire Hawks in the Blast from 2.30pm.
Opposition
Lancashire know all too well that Leicestershire are having quite the season.
They are top of Division Two in the Rothesay County Championship, having won five of their opening seven matches, including beating the Red Rose at Grace Road late last month.
They are captained by powerful middle order batter Louis Kimber - his first campaign in charge - with Alfonso Thomas continuing as coach.
Opening the batting will be Rishi Patel, who was their leading run-scorer last season with 413 runs. But they have lost last season’s leading wicket-taker Scott Currie, who was on loan and has remained with Hampshire. The tall pacer claimed 20 wickets for Leicestershire last season.
Former Yorkshire captain, the current Pakistan Test skipper, Shan Masood has signed an overseas deal at the Uptonsteel County Ground for the second half of 2025, including the entirety of the Blast.
The top order batter has been joined by New Zealand-born Dutch international seamer Logan van Beek.
Opposing player to watch
Powerhouse middle order batter Louis Kimber has taken on the captaincy in the Blast, with club captain Peter Handscomb not playing in this competition.
Instead, Handscomb is captaining the Foxes in Championship and one-day cricket.
Kimber, aged 28, smashed 243 off 127 balls against Sussex in red-ball cricket last season. But he is yet to make the same kind of eye-catching impact in Blast cricket, with only four fifties in 39 career appearances to date.
The right-hander, however, strikes at more than a 150 strike-rate.
Previous meeting
Lancashire won the only Blast meeting between these two counties last season, by 25 runs at the Uptonsteel County Ground, Grace Road in mid-June.
The Lightning were triumphant in the East Midlands on the back of a 162 all out total, which included 35 for Luke Wells at the top of the order and Matty Hurst’s middle order 32.
Pacer Scott Currie struck four times for Leicestershire.
In reply, Leicestershire just couldn’t get going against a polished six-man Lightning attack who all struck at least once. That was despite opener Rishi Patel’s innings-high 43.
Wells continued his impressive day with 2-24 from four overs of leg-spin, while George Balderson also struck twice on his debut in this format. Earlier, he contributed 22 off 18 balls as well.
Added to two wickets apiece for Wells and Balderson in Leicestershire’s 137-9, Saqib Mahmood, Luke Wood (1-20 from four overs), Chris Green and Jack Blatherwick claimed a wicket apiece.
What they said
Michael Jones, Sunday’s top run-scorer up at Durham with 55, says the opportunity to play alongside Jimmy Anderson for the first time was “pretty cool”.
Jones shone with the bat in pursuit of 151 after Anderson had done likewise with the ball, his career best 3-17 being the feature spell in Durham’s 150-6 total.
Anderson was playing his first T20 game for nearly 11 years.
“He was very excited, and I was very excited to play alongside him,” said ex-Durham man Jones.
“The wicket suited him pretty well. There was a little bit there for him.
“He’s probably the best Test bowler ever. For him to come back and to be able to play with him is pretty cool.”
Lancashire are flying at the start of this North Group and get another chance to build on that against Leicestershire Foxes.
“We’re a good white-ball team, and we know we are. And we’re a confident team. Three from three, we can’t complain,” continued Jones, who also believes narrow wins such as Durham - off the last ball - can really add to that belief.
“These crunch moments, they’re great to be involved in them. And it gives you that real buzz at the end.”
The exciting thing for Lancashire is that they’re going nicely and still have the likes of Jos Buttler, Liam Livingstone, Saqib Mahmood and Phil Salt to come back after their England and IPL commitments.
Jones added: “We’ve got guys to come back and join what is already a strong squad.
“We’ve definitely got a lot of bases covered.
“You look at our team and the amount of spin we’ve got for example. We got that many options that if someone does get taken down, we can go somewhere else.”
How’s Stat!
Keaton Jennings currently has 1,677 runs to his name for Lancashire in T20 cricket, a haul achieved in 63 matches (56 innings).
He scored 24 of those opening the batting against his former county Durham, and it was an innings which took him into the Red Rose county’s top-five leading run-scorers in the history of the Vitality Blast.
Jennings’ interim head coach Steven Croft leads the way on 5,018 runs, followed by Liam Livingstone (2,359), Karl Brown (2,188) and Tom Smith (1,968).
Jennings has just gone beyond Alex Davies (1,674).
Jos Buttler is seventh on that list with 1,560 runs for the Lightning in 20-over cricket.