Carnegie out as Foxes take T20 victory

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Yorkshire Carnegie are out of this season's Twenty20 Cup after going down to an 11 run defeat to Leicestershire Foxes at Grace Road.

Yorkshire Carnegie are out of this season's Twenty20 Cup after going down to an 11 run defeat to Leicestershire Foxes at Grace Road.

The Tykes were on top for a long time but the Foxes par total of 164 proved enough despite early heroics from Jacques Rudolph and Andrew Gale.

The opening pair matched each other stride for stride at the start of the Carnegie reply with Rudolph reaching a half century by brilliantly driving Andrew Harris into the pavilion balcony where he was caught one handed by one of his team mates. Rudolph was eventually removed for 61 and Gale went soon after for 43 but Yorkshire still looked heavy favourites with 108 runs on the board and 59 required with time to spare.

Michael Vaughan and Gerard Brophy were foiled in their attempts to keep up the pace as runs suddenly became difficult to come by and when Vaughan was bowled off his pads from an Andrew Harris full toss for nine, Yorkshire were suddenly in trouble.

Gerard Brophy made 15 but no one could stay with him as a reply that had taken the Carnegie to 53 shy of victory with 42 balls remaining had the breaks put on it in emphatic fashion.

Yorkshire were left needing an unlikely 18 from the final over and despite Adam Lyth finding a four from a thick inside edge, the visitors failed to get within range and bowed out of this seasons competition. The results in the other matches in the Northern Division all went Yorkshire's way today and a victory at Grace Road would have put Carnegie in pole position for second place qualification.

As the highest place attainable in the Northern Division is third, but only the top two third places from the three groups take Quarter-Final spots, Carnegie are unable to progress to the next round as even a victory over Derbyshire Phantoms on Sunday would not take them higher than the third place points totals in the other two groups. As Leicestershire play Durham in the final round of matches one of those sides is now guaranteed second place.

Yorkshire Carnegie still have something to play for on Sunday however, as third place will secure them a Division One berth in next season's new, and potentially lucrative, P20 competition - they will though have to hope results go their way in the other matches.