Umar Akmal showed his experience to guide Leicestershire to a six-wicket victory at Trent Bridge. The Pakistan international, on his Foxes’ debut, made an unbeaten 76 as the match ended in slightly controversial circumstances.

ECB/PA05-Jun-2015
ScorecardPakistan’s Umar Akmal played a fine debut innings•Getty ImagesUmar Akmal showed his experience to guide Leicestershire to a six-wicket victory at Trent Bridge. The Pakistan international, on his Foxes’ debut, made an unbeaten 76 as the match ended in slightly controversial circumstances.After Akmal plundered his third six of a Luke Fletcher over, the 19th of the innings, the umpires intervened and announced that they had imposed a further six penalty runs against the home side, as they would be unable to start their final over in time.Akmal scored his runs from 49 balls, hitting four fours and five sixes as the Foxes ended a bleak series of results in Nottingham, that has seen them lose on six of their previous seven visits.The home side, including England’s Stuart Broad in their T20 side for the first time since Finals Day in 2010, had made 148 for seven for after being inserted, with Alex Hales top scoring with 54. Clint McKay shone with the ball for the Foxes, finishing with figures of four for 24 in front of a crowd of 11,057.Leicestershire’s reply appeared to hit the buffers from an early stage, with Jake Ball removing three batsmen with his first 14 deliveries. Ball, who claimed career-best first-class figures of six for 49 earlier in the week, had Ned Eckersley taken at point in the first over of the chase, before clean bowling Ben Raine and Mark Cosgrove on his way to finishing with figures of 3 for 42.Insights

For all their strength on paper, Nottinghamshire’s batting order failed to live up to the hype. Wessels, Hales, Mullaney, Taylor, Patel, Sammy, Taylor is arguably the best batting line-up in the competition. It is testament to Leicestershire’s bowlers that they never let them break free.
Umar Akmal is in superb form at the moment having scored 85* and 95* in the Super 8 T20 Cup for Lahore Lions in Pakistan. He is an excellent signing for a Leicestershire team lacking in experience and high-quality.

Andrea Agathangelou hit Broad straight to Samit Patel at midwicket but the expected romp to an easy victory was put on the back boiler as the Foxes fought back through Akmal and Matthew Boyce, who put on an unbroken 99 together for the fifth wicket.Earlier, Hales and Brendan Taylor had laid a foundation for Notts’ eventual total with a third-wicket partnership of 71, after Riki Wessels had fallen for 18 and Steven Mullaney for just 4.Hales’ second half century in just three innings in this season’s Blast competition was reached with a huge six over midwicket, off Robert Taylor, his third maximum of the evening. Once the England one-day specialist had miscued Jigar Naik high to long-on, shortly afterwards, the innings fell away alarmingly.Brendan Taylor, although making his highest score in this season’s competition, was far from his fluent best in making 47 from 39 balls on his 100th T20 appearance. The former Zimbabwe captain had made an indifferent start to this season’s Blast competition, failing to get beyond 12 in his three previous matches but he looked to be on course for a maiden fifty before being given out lbw to McKay.Incredibly, that was the first of a three wickets in three balls spell to end the innings, with two former Leicestershire players both being dismissed without scoring. James Taylor, batting at No. 7, perished first ball as his attempted reverse slog ballooned high before falling into the gloves of wicketkeeper Ned Eckersley.McKay was denied a hat-trick but the next delivery did produce a wicket, nevertheless, as Broad was run out without facing, trying to steal a bye to Eckersley.”Umar was sensational,” Andrew McDonald, Leicestershire head coach said. “Some of those sixes were so cleanly hit, we know he can do that because he’s an international player but Boycey’s role was equally important”We pulled it back nicely. At one stage it looked as if Notts’ score might have got a bit out of hand and they might have got up to 160 or 170. That would have been a difficult chase but we were able to keep them below 150, which was our plan.”We read the wicket quite well and we didn’t panic in the run chase. It could have easy to sit down and say we’re four down early but we had some specific plans for the middle there and Boycey played a pivotal role in that.”