Old boy Bevan takes great delight as Yorkshire throw it away

Leicestershire 221-7 Yorkshire 214-8 Leicestershire win by 6 runs (Duckworth/Lewis method)

Leicestershire, fielding like their neighbouring Zurich Premiership rugby champions, pulled off an astonishing victory in the last over to take over the lead of the northern zone of the Benson & Hedges Cup. Yorkshire, needing 35 off 36 balls with six wickets standing when Darren Lehmann slashed to gully, contrived to lose four more wickets and the match.

Having set out their Grace Road stall for one-day silver, the Foxes may have written this fixture off in their campaign planning, especially when having to travel north with three reserve bowlers to fill some of the gaps left by the injured Phillip DeFreitas and the flu-stricken Devon Malcolm.

In fact the off-spinner Carl Crowe and seamers Jamie Grove and Matt Whiley played their part in an exceptional team effort spearheaded by the Gold Award winner, Michael Bevan. The Australian left-hander hit 48 runs, made two boundary catches and took the wicket of Yorkshire's potential match-winner, Craig White.

The home side had been confident enough to rest Steve Kirby and promote 17-year-old all-rounder Tim Bresnan as Leicestershire's captain, Vince Wells, with one eye on the deteriorating weather, rightly batted first on a slow but true pitch.

An innings twice interrupted by rain was buttressed by the third-wicket stand between the Leeds-born Iain Sutcliffe and Bevan, Yorkshire's former overseas professional, which amassed 97 in 22 overs. Both enjoy clobbering these particular opponents and seemed to be building an inviolable total when Bevan was startled to find himself trapped by a ball from his fellow Aussie Darren Lehmann.

Sutcliffe mistimed White to mid-on and, aside from Neil Burns, the Leicestershire tail found Gary Fellows' medium pace deceptive.

Needing 221 off 46 overs, Yorkshire must have thought victory was a formality, and so it seemed for most of the afternoon. White and Michael Lumb were going so well that they had reached 134 by the 30th over for the loss of only two wickets.

However, Lumb was the first of four batsmen to unwisely try to clear the ropes, Bevan taking the catch at distant long-on. Lehmann then fell to a superb catch, Anthony McGrath, Richard Blakey and Fellows all perished unheroically aiming for glory, leaving Yorkshire requiring 14 from the final over.

Bevan, who left Yorkshire in unhappy circumstances, was called up and clinched the game for the visitors by bowling White as he went for the big heave.