Career-best knock for Rishi Patel sends Leicestershire to top of table

Patel's 129-ball innings was followed swifter century from Colin Ackermann as the Leicestershire piled up 411 for 6, and while Keaton Jennings and Tom Bailey both flashed the bat for Lancashire, the visitors completed a convincing win

Old Trafford: Leicestershire 411-6, Lancashire 316 - Leicestershire won by 95 runs

Rishi Patel made a career-best List A score of 161 to help Leicestershire Foxes go to the top of Group A in the Metro Bank One-Day Cup with a thoroughly convincing 95-run defeat of Lancashire at Emirates Old Trafford.

Patel's 129-ball innings was followed by an even swifter century from Colin Ackermann, who made 100 not out, as the visitors piled up 411 for 6, their highest score in List A cricket. In reply, Lancashire skipper Keaton Jennings made 127 but the home side were bowled out for 316 with the debutant leg-spinner Uttam Ramji taking 3 for 58 off 6.2 eventful overs.      

In the first innings of the match the bowling of a dot ball represented a triumph. Patel and his opening partner, Sol Budinger, set the tone for their side's effort by putting on 159 in 21 overs, thus establishing a new record for the first wicket in matches between these counties.

After hitting nine fours and three sixes in his 61-ball 81, Budinger was caught at long-on by Tom Bailey off Tom Aspinwall for 81 and that began a small collapse for the visitors, who also lost Lewis Hill and Peter Handscomb in the next six overs. But those reverses were merely the prelude to another onslaught as Patel and Ackermann added 110 runs in the next 13 overs.

^{Colin Ackermann scored a rapid century of his own [Gareth Copley/Getty Images]}

Patel's magnificent innings ended when he drove Blatherwick to Jennings at cover and the same bowler then had Wiaan Mulder caught behind by Matty Hurst for two. That left the Foxes on 311 for 5 in the 42nd over but any joy Blatherwick felt at taking his seventh List A wicket of the week was quickly dispelled when he bowled his second above waist-high full toss of the innings and had to be removed from the attack.

Lancashire suffering also continued. Although Louis Kimber fell to a catch at deep midwicket off Will Williams for 15, Ackermann and Tom Scriven smashed a further 62 off 34 balls with Ackermann reaching his century when he pushed Bailey's penultimate ball of the innings for a single. Scriven's six off the final delivery ensured that Leicestershire's List A 406 against Berkshire in 1996 was eclipsed.

Blatherwick, the only bowler to take more than one wicket finished with 3 for 70. Apart from Balderson, who picked up 1 for 24 from five overs, the rest of the home side's figures carried a government health warning. 

Needing to score at 8.24 runs per over to win the game, Lancashire's openers took 35 runs off the first four overs but that bright start to the innings ended when Bell cut Chris Wright very hard to backward point, where Budinger took a fine catch.

Josh Bohannon scarcely settled and had made only 10 when he hoisted Scriven high to short mid-on where Mulder took the catch running in from midwicket. Dane Vilas helped Jennings add 77 in nine overs before two run outs in the space of three overs put the skids under Lancashire's pursuit.

^{Keaton Jennings scored a century for Lancashire [Lancashire Cricket]}

In both cases the non-striker was dismissed. First, Vilas, having made 57, his third successive List A fifty scampered down the wicket when Jennings reverse-swept Ackermann, only to be defeated by Wright and Handscomb's relay throws; then Balderson thought a single was possible when Jennings played the ball to cover but was beaten by Budinger's throw to the debutant Ramji.

Two overs later, Ramji, who has come through the Grace Road Academy, took his first senior wicket when he had Hurst leg before wicket for two to leave Lancashire on 181 for 5.

The highly-rated Aspinwall then made 16 off eight balls before reverse-sweeping his ninth, from Ackermann to Patel at backward point. Jennings reached his century off 92 balls and later took 16 runs off the first three balls of Ramji's fifth over, only to be caught at deep midwicket by Ackermann attempting to smack a third maximum.

Bailey then supplied some late defiance with a 42-ball 60 but he fell to Ramji's catch at deep square-leg off Wright and the debutant then dismissed Williams to complete his side's deserved victory.

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