1:49 AM IST, 9:19 PM Local Time: Lancashire win by 5 Wickets! It wasn't the most straightforward chase one must say. However, eventually, Lancs get over the line quite comfortably in the end. On a wicket that had a bit in it for the bowlers, only one man batted brilliantly. Liam Livingstone. His innings made all the difference and gave the visitors a convincing 5 wickets win.
Lancashire won the toss and elected to bowl first. Rishi Patel and Rehan Ahmed started off well in the first powerplay. They got off to a flyer before Rehan was caught for 12. Nick Kelly joined Rishi and the pair took the score to 60/1 after 6 overs. They eventually stitched a 53-run stand, and everything was looking good before Rishi Patel was dismissed for 38.
The score was 70/2 at that stage. The spin of Liam Livingstone and Shadab Khan infused the middle overs choke post that. Apart from Ashton Turner's 32, no middle order batter spent time in the middle with Nick Kelly. Wickets fell regularly and what was a smooth sailing boat was brought down to 125/5 around the 15-over mark. Eventually it became 143/6 as Kelly found some crucial boundaries at the back end. At the end of 20 overs the innings finished with 156/7 on the board. Nick Kelly finished with 49* next to his name. The pick of the bowlers were Liam Livingstone (2-34) and Shadab Khan (1-23).
The chase was not going to be easy on a surface that was so tacky. However, the kind of batting pedigree the Lancs boasted about, it only needed one batter to have a day out. The Foxes bowled well with the new ball and made life difficult for Phil Salt and Jos Buttler. The latter was dismissed for just 10. The former really struggled to find any timing.
However, he was helped by Liam Livingstone who got used to the pace of the pitch pretty quickly. Livingstone and Salt added 89 off 54 for the second wicket and broke the back of the chase. Phil Salt did well to just give strike back to Liam Livingstone, who was smoking them for fun. Salt was trapped LBW for 34 and the partnership broke at 106/2. Ben McDermott was trapped LBW on the very first ball and the third wicket fell pretty soon as well.
There was a quiet period of 2-3 overs, and it just felt like Foxes might pull off something special. Those thoughts were put to bed as Liam added a quickfire 32 with Keaton Jennings for the 4the wicket. They pushed the score to 139 before Livingstone was trapped LBW for 74. Joseph Moored came in next and smashed 16 off 11 to seal the deal for the visitors. They won with 7 balls to spare. The pick of the bowlers for the Foxes was Liam Trevaskis for his 1-29.