Blakey and Gray had added another 29 runs in the six overs to lunch and returned with Gray attacking with gusto, driving and sweeping. Blakey, more circumspect, occasionally drove with the execution that reminded some of the 3,000 crowd of the batting prot? who appeared in 1985. This may be his last year with the county and many will regret he ever took up the wicketkeeping gloves.By 2.30 Leicestershire had been thrown on the defensive, with Darren Maddy bowling to one slip with three men on the boundary. Gray romped past his previous-best 40 in each innings at Arundel against Sussex at the end of June and Leicestershire grasped the new ball as soon as it was available without result.When rain stopped play in mid-afternoon the stand was worth 138, Yorkshire’s best for the wicket against Leicestershire.
In distant view was the county record, 192 against Surrey at Bradford in 1898.When play resumed, Blakey declared after one over, leaving Leicestershire 345 to win with four overs remaining last night, during which they lost Trevor Ward, lbw to a Steve Kirby express. Leicestershire were unhappy at the sight of Blakey’s spiked boots roughing up the surface Clearly, he is a captain on a learning curve.. It should come as no surprise when the England selectors contacted one of their three latest replacements for the International Cricket Council Trophy squad, that the player in question, Rikki Clarke, should be in hospital. In this instance, having played an inside edge on to his left knee while scoring an unbeaten, match-winning 98 in a Norwich Union League match at Derby on Monday, Clarke, Surrey’s brilliant 20-year-old prospect, was in the Stamford Hospital in Hammersmith, west London, receiving treatment.He was contacted on his mobile phone by the chairman of selectors, David Graveney, on Thursday.
“He said to me, ‘You are in the squad for the ICC Trophy,’ and I said, ‘Thanks very much, cheers’, ” explained Clarke, who will fly out to Sri Lanka with the rest of the squad for the tournament, which runs from 12 to 29 September in Colombo.Clarke is in for Durham’s Paul Collingwood and is joined by two more substitutes, Dominic Cork and Owais Shah, the former coming in for Craig White, the latter for Michael Vaughan. These latest additions bring to five the number of replacements England have been forced to call up for the tournament so far.Collingwood has a prolapsed disc in his neck, White is suffering from a side strain and Vaughan is to undergo arthroscopy to clean up his right knee, which will keep him out for four weeks. It needs smoothing out.” Right now, though, England need him, rough edges and all, and if Clarke’s script-writer gets it right, then the Surrey man should take the winning wicket or score the winning run, since 29 September is his 21st birthday.. The former England wicketkeeper Jack Russell and Roger Sillence hit centuries to put Gloucestershire in a strong position in their County Championship Second Division match against the promotion hopefuls Derbyshire at Bristol yesterday. Di Venuto made an unbeaten 92 off just 97 balls, but Derbyshire will resume on the final day still needing another 428 to win.Play had resumed with Gloucestershire on 290 for 5 – a lead of 295 – with Matt Windows unbeaten on 143 and Russell on 37. Their object was to score quick runs to set up a daunting victory target for Derbyshire but they suffered a double setback by losing Windows and Ian Fisher in the space of six balls.Windows fell to Mohammad Ali after adding only a single to his overnight score.
