Picture by John Mallett/Leicestershire CCC. Jafer Chohan and Matt Milnes celebrate victory this evening at Grace Road.
Leicestershire Foxes v Yorkshire
Vitality Blast, North Group
Friday July 18, 2025, 6.30pm
The Uptonsteel County Ground, Grace Road
Toss: Yorkshire won it and elected to bowl
Teams – Leicestershire: Rishi Patel, Sol Budinger, Shan Masood, Rehan Ahmed, Louis Kimber c, Ben Cox w, Logan van Beek, Ian Holland, Josh Thomas, Tom Scriven, Josh Hull.
Yorkshire: Harry Duke w, Dawid Malan, Will Luxton, James Wharton, Abdullah Shafique, Will Sutherland, Matthew Revis, Jordan Thompson, Jafer Chohan, Matt Milnes, Dan Moriarty.
Match Summary: Matt Milnes was the hero with the bat as Yorkshire saved their best until last, ending a disappointing Vitality Blast campaign with a remarkable two-wicket win off the last ball.
Chasing 186, Yorkshire fell to 23-4 in the powerplay before Abdullah Shafique and Matthew Revis shared a repairing 112. Shafique’s 64 off 38 balls represented his second fifty in as many nights, Revis supported him expertly with 52 off 32.
Yorkshire needed 13 off the last over from Josh Hull and lost Jordan Thompson as the equation became 10 off two balls. But Milnes hoisted the England Test left-armer over mid-wicket and then ramped him over fine-leg for successive sixes.
This was Yorkshire’s fifth win in 14 matches. They fought back impressively, particularly late on, to bowl the quarter-final chasing Foxes out for 185. Australian overseas all-rounder Will Sutherland was excellent for 3-20.
Milnes also struck three times in an over with his seamers.
The Foxes needed to win this to have any chance of qualifying. But even if they had, other results would have knocked them out. As it was, it was Milnes who did that.
Picture by John Mallett/Leicestershire CCC. Matthew Revis celebrates his fifty, congratulated by Will Sutherland.
Match Report: Both sides enjoyed success in the early stages, with Dan Moriarty striking twice but Leicestershire’s top order refusing to take a backwards step.
Sol Budinger, Rishi Patel and Shan Masood, the latter with 21, all made fast starts but fell as the Foxes were reduced to 52-3 inside six overs.
Moriarty’s left-arm spin accounted for Budinger caught at deep mid-wicket and Patel well caught in front of the sight-screen by James Wharton on the run.
Will Sutherland then bowled a scooping Masood, winning the battle between the current and former Yorkshire players.
Leicestershire reached 91-3 after 10 overs as Rehan Ahmed and Ben Cox united.
Ahmed had hoisted Moriarty for six over long-on, but Cox was matching him in the scoring stakes.
They shared 81 for the fourth wicket, a stand broken when Ahmed sliced Jordan Thompson out to deep cover, where Will Luxton took a smart catch – 133-4 in the 13th.
Louis Kimber took the lion’s share of 22 off Jafer Chohan in the 15th over as Leicestershire reached 161-4.
But Sutherland trapped Cox lbw for 43 immediately afterwards.
Matt Milnes struck three times in the 17th over as the Foxes slipped into trouble at 173-8; Logan van Beek caught and bowled, Ian Holland caught at cover and Tom Scriven caught at long-on.
Louis Kimber chipped Thompson to short fine-leg at the start of the next to move to 99 Yorkshire T20 wickets before the excellent Sutherland castled Josh Hull in the penultimate over as the Foxes lost their last six wickets for 24 runs.
Picture by Allan McKenzie/SWPix.com. Abdullah Shafique has posted fifties in successive nights after one against Lancashire last night. This, at Grace Road, was in a winning cause.
Yorkshire’s chase then got off to a sticky start when Luxton chipped Holland’s third ball of the innings to cover.
Wharton started brightly, including pulling Hull for six. But he fell when trying to do similar against van Beek and, on 14, could only miscue to mid-wicket as the score fell to 20-2 in the fourth over.
And when Dawid Malan lofted Holland high to mid-off running back, quickly followed by Harry Duke miscueing a pull at van Beek to mid-wicket, Yorkshire were on the ropes at 23-4 in the sixth over.
From there, Yorkshire fought impressively through Matthew Revis and Abdullah Shafique, who shared a century fifth-wicket partnership.
Other results – Bears beating Derbyshire and Durham beating Northamptonshire – meant Leicestershire’s quarter-final hopes were over even with a win here.
The White Rose reached halfway at 68-4, needing 118 more from 10 overs to win.
Both Revis and Shafique played confidently and turned things around.
The pair found, and cleared the ropes with confidence.
And by the time Shafique reached a 28-ball fifty to back up the one he scored against Lancashire last night, Yorkshire were 115-4 in the 14th over and with Revis closing in on the same milestone.
Revis reached his fifty off 30 balls.
Unfortunately, though, it was sandwiched in between his and Shafique’s departures.
Shafique was bowled sweeping at Ahmed’s leg-spin and Revis caught at short third off Hull’s left-arm pace – 151-6 after 17.1 overs.
Sutherland hit two sixes in a quick-fire and crucial 18 to continue his good night but top-edged behind off van Beek late in the penultimate, which ended with Yorkshire 173-7 needing 13.
Thompson was kept quiet by Hull at the start of the over before hoisting out to deep mid-wicket, where Tom Scriven knocked the ball back to fielding colleague van Beek to take the catch before going over the rope.
That left the equation at 11 off three balls. Jafer Chohan scrambled a bye to keeper Ben Cox before Milnes hoisted Hull over mid-wicket and ramped him for another six off the last ball, with four needed, to spark joy scenes.
It was a sparkling way to end a disappointing campaign.
Picture by John Mallett/Leicestershire CCC. Will Sutherland was excellent for three wickets and 18 runs with the bat.
Turning Point: The last two balls of the match from Josh Hull to Matt Milnes.
The last over, which started with Yorkshire 173-7 and needing 13, had gone 2, dot, wicket, 1b, 6, 6.
It was a remarkable finish in the East Midlands.
Magic Moment: Matt Milnes struck three times in the 17th over as the centrepiece of a collapse which saw Leicestershire lose their last six wickets for 24, slipping from 161-4 early in the 16th over to 185 all out late in the 19th.
But he usurped that contribution with the bat later on. What a night he had.
Stat of the Match: Abdullah Shafique and Matthew Revis shared 112 inside 11 overs, a Yorkshire record partnership for the fifth wicket in T20 cricket. They beat the 103 unbroken shared by Gary Ballance and Adil Rashid against Trinidad and Tobago in the 2012 Champions League event in South Africa.
What They Said – Head coach Anthony McGrath: “This game in isolation, obviously we did really well to claw them back to 185. I think they lost six for 24 at one point.
“Games like that, you’ve got to take the powerplay and get in front, and we probably had one of our worst powerplays. It’s 12-an-over from there.
“But Shafique and Revis, that partnership was incredible to get us anywhere near.
“We have got the power down the order, but we still needed 60 off four-ish overs. To get over the line was brilliant.
“Sutherland, Thompson and Milnes at the end, superb.
“But it probably adds more to the frustration. It’s a consolation. A couple more wins or three would have taken us through.
“Games we’ve lost, we’ve lost to the bottom of the league twice (Derbyshire).
“There’s loads to do. We’ve not been great in T20 as a club the last few years, and that’s continued.
Picture by Alex Whitehead/SWPix.com. Anthony McGrath has been speaking about tonight’s win and Yorkshire’s T20 campaign as a whole.
“First and foremost, it’s down to ourselves as head coach and the coaches to make some changes in terms of how we go about next year.
“Players as well. We’ve got to be better in key moments as a team.
“T20 doesn’t come around until June next year or whenever it is, so there’s time to reassess that. But it’s been a disappointing campaign, I can’t lie. Very frustrating.
“We’ve got quite a while now to assess. It’s been our first year here. I think there’s some really good stuff. But, obviously, there’s stuff which is fundamentally wrong. That’s why we’re not qualifying year in and year out.
“We’ve got to look at everything really, from tactics, to prep, to players, to specialists, to everything. To compete in all formats, which we want to do, we’ve got to put that across the board.
“I’m really pleased for Milnesy. He’s a really top cricketer, and you can see him getting his confidence back in his body. He’ll come into the red-ball reckoning for the rest of the year now, as well as the 50-overs.
“We’re just hoping he’s lucky and stays fit because when he is, we can see that he’s a match-winner.”
What’s Next: That’s Yorkshire done for the summer in the Vitality Blast. They turn their attentions to the Rothesay County Championship next week, facing Surrey at Scarborough from Tuesday in their 10th match of the summer.
