Picture by John Mallett/Leicestershire CCC. Jafer Chohan continued his impressive weekend with two more wickets, added to his 4-17 against Lancashire on Friday.
Leicestershire Foxes v Yorkshire
Vitality Blast
Sunday June 7, 2026, 2.30pm
The Uptonsteel County Ground, Grace Road
Toss: Yorkshire won it and elected to bowl.
Teams – Leicestershire: Rehan Ahmed, Rishi Patel, Nick Kelly, Jonny Tattersall, Ashton Turner, Ben Cox w, Ben Green c, Liam Trevaskis, Alex Green, Ian Holland, Josh Davey.
Yorkshire: Adam Lyth, Jonny Bairstow c/w, Will Luxton, James Wharton, Moeen Ali, Matthew Revis, Faheem Ashraf, Dom Bess, AJ Tye, Hassan Ali, Jafer Chohan.
Match summary: Hassan Ali’s brilliant 4-18 was the standout performance for Yorkshire, but it wasn’t enough to prevent a low-scoring defeat as the county fell short of chasing a 148-target to lose by 12 runs off the penultimate ball.
Yorkshire were 100-3 in the 13th over, only to slip to 135 all out after 19.5 overs, with England leg-spinning all-rounder Rehan Ahmed to the fore with 3-28 from four overs, two catches and a hand in a run out.
Yorkshire failed to get 17 off the last over from Ben Green’s seam with one wicket left and slipped to a second defeat in six in this competition.
Pakistani international fast bowler Hassan took wickets at the start, middle and end of Leicestershire’s innings, which amounted to 147-8, including New Zealander Nick Kelly’s lone-hand 44.
An early 39 off 21 balls for Jonny Bairstow and a season’s best 38 off 27 from Will Luxton looked like helping Yorkshire to victory. But it wasn’t to be.
Report: Yorkshire struck twice in the powerplay as Leicestershire reached 46-2, including a wicket for Hassan Ali off the fifth ball of a match played out on a slow pitch.
He had Rehan Ahmed, back for his first game after the IPL, caught on the attack at mid-on for a second-ball duck.
New Zealand overseas left-hander Nick Kelly, dropped on two in the deep, played nicely to get his side moving, only to lose Rishi Patel caught at mid-off as he tried to hit a second successive six off Moeen Ali’s off-spin. Moeen pitched the first one up but dragged the second ball back and was rewarded.
Kelly had moved to the verge of a fifty and had got Leicestershire back into decent order, only for things to change in an instant in Yorkshire’s favour.
When he pulled Hassan out to deep mid-wicket for 44, it sparked a collapse which saw the Foxes fall from 90-2 late in the 11th over to 96-6 early in the 14th.
Jafer Chohan bowled a driving Ashton Turner and trapped a sweeping Ben Green lbw. Sandwiched in between, Faheem Ashraf bowled Jonny Tattersall for 26 with one that kept low as the ex-Yorkshire player tried to pull.
Hassan then returned to strike twice in three balls late in the penultimate over as Liam Trevaskis and Ian Holland holed out against him. His first wicket of the day, that of Ahmed, was his 350th in T20 cricket.
Jonny Bairstow then swept, cut and drilled three boundaries off Turner’s off-spin as 14 came from the opening over of the chase.
The same man later took four fours off Trevaskis’s left-arm spin in the fourth over as the score reached 44-0 after four, only to pull Ian Holland’s seam to short fine-leg at the start of the fifth. Adam Lyth also fell pulling later in the same over as the White Rose fell to 45-2.
Will Luxton whipped Holland for six not long afterwards, with Tattersall having gone off with a leg injury.
Yorkshire reached 66-2 after eight overs, as Leicestershire had done earlier. And they lost James Wharton bowled scooping at the tall pacer Alex Green not long afterwards.
But the White Rose were able to stay ahead thanks to Will Luxton’s presence. He once again whipped a six off seam, this time Josh Davey being deposited out of the ground over deep backward square-leg as he moved into the thirties at 85-3 in the 11th.
But then came the drama as Ahmed had a hand in five quick wickets, taking three of them with his leg-spin, as Yorkshire fell to 124-8 in the 18th.
He trapped Luxton lbw playing to leg before getting Matthew Revis caught behind cutting. Sandwiched in between, Moeen was run out attempting a third to deep mid-wicket. He and Revis both stuttered, with the England legend ending up short at the striker’s end following an Ahmed throw.
The same man then had Faheem Ashraf caught at short third and caught AJ Tye at deep backward square-leg off Trevaskis.
Further damage was done later in the 18th when Trevaskis bowled Hassan before Green comfortably defended 17 off the last over and had Chohan caught and bowled at the second attempt off the penultimate ball with 13 needed.
Turning point: Yorkshire slipping from 100-3 in the 13th over to 135 all out in the 20th. This defeat, from a game in the palm of their hands, will sting a lot.
Magic moment: Both teams endured significant collapses, but Yorkshire looked well on their way to victory as the Foxes lost four wickets for six runs in 15 balls to slip from 90-2 in the 11th over to 96-6 in the 14th. Ultimately, they were able to recover.
Stat of the match: Yorkshire have named the same team for four successive Blast matches.
What they said – Yorkshire captain Jonny Bairstow said: “Bitterly disappointing. It just wasn’t good enough, that. To get off to a good start like that and then lose seven for 35 – look, if we’re being honest, it’s extremely poor.
“There were six overs where we restricted them to 25-30 runs and took wickets. We bowled really nicely. Credit to the guys.
“But there’s no hiding from it, with the bat there, we just weren’t good enough.
“If you’d have said at the start of the competition that we would have been four wins from six, then we would have taken that.
“However, we’ll look back on this one as one that we should have been on the other end of.”
What’s next: Yorkshire are back in Rothesay County Championship action from Friday, when they host Warwickshire at Scarborough. The county’s next Blast game is against Hampshire Hawks under lights at the Utilita Bowl on Friday June 26.
