Lancashire Lightning v Leicestershire Foxes, Vitality Blast

But the conclusion of the game belies the bland result. 

Requiring 146 to win, the Foxes were 131 for three with 19 balls left in the contest. But Chris Green bowled Nick Kelly for 29 to start a dramatic collapse that saw Saqib Mahmood take two wickets in two balls and George Balderson two in an over to leave the ninth-wicket pair, Ian Holland and Josh Davey needing ten off the last over. 

The situation was complicated by the fact that Sol Budinger could not bat after his collision with Liam Trevaskis earlier in the game but a boundary apiece from Holland and Davey and two scrambled singles saw them home with one ball to spare. 

All thoughts of cricket and the Vitality Blast were forgotten for ten sombre minutes when Leicestershire’s Sol Budinger and Liam Trevaskis collided on the boundary when trying to prevent a six. Trevaskis appeared to recover relatively quickly and was able to continue but medical staff from both counties treated Budinger, who was eventually placed on a stretcher and stretchered off the field in a buggy to a round of sympathetic applause from the Manchester crowd. Leicestershire later revealed that Budinger had a knee injury and was being assessed.

Steven Croft, Lancashire’s head coach, said: 

“A tight game that see-sawed all the way through really. 

“Probably not the start we wanted with the bat. We realised it was a bit of a slow pitch, a bit of a turn, and we scraped our way to a really good total, led by Moorsey, with a real mature innings for a 17year old, well supported by Chris Green. 

“It got us up to something really competitive. The batters at half-time were saying it's very defendable, and it see-sawed with the ball a little bit. 

“We didn't quite execute all our plans, we felt we'd give away a few runs here and there, but once again got ourselves back into a real strong position. Tom Aspinwall had to bowl a really tough over, his first of the night and it was unlucky for him, it didn't quite work out.”