Veteran Cairns Piles on the Pain for Sad Foxes As Snape Calls Time

Leicestershire, so often princes of Twenty20, are playing more like paupers. A record of nine defeats in 37 completed matches before this season, the best of all the counties, has now been stained by five losses out of five. While Nottinghamshire go top of the North division courtesy of this tense last-over victory, Leicestershire, two-time winners and four-time semi-finalists, need a small miracle to keep any hope of a Champions League payday.

It will not have helped their mood that this latest defeat was engineered by Chris Cairns, who at the age of 38 has been persuaded out of retirement to add gumption to Nottinghamshire's middle order and yesterday did precisely that, cracking 50 in 38 balls after his side had slipped to a precarious 78 for four in the 11th over.

Ever the entertainer, Cairns kept a crowd of almost 8,500 on tenterhooks when he chipped the last ball of the penultimate over straight to midwicket to end a match-turning fifth-wicket stand of 53 with his captain, Chris Read. That left Nottinghamshire needing nine off Jim Allenby's last over, and the experienced Mark Ealham duly carved the first delivery over backward point for four before completing his side's third win of the competition with two balls to spare.

The feeling that this is a Leicestershire side in transition had been underlined by the announcement that Jeremy Snape, who was so instrumental in the club's Twenty20 triumphs of 2004 and 2006, will play his last game of county cricket in Tuesday's return fixture between these sides at Grace Road. The 35-year-old Snape will now concentrate on his sports- and business-coaching consultancy, Sporting Edge, but it will come as no surprise if an international coaching position presents itself given the way his stock rose as Shane Warne's assistant with the victorious Rajasthan Royals during the recent Indian Premier League.

"I loved working with people and helping them improve their performance, and I got as much out of working at the IPL and with the England boys at the last World Cup as I did as a player," he said yesterday. Leicestershire could have done with his wise head here, especially when they were squandering a platform of 114 for three in the 15th over. Only the possibility of consolation awaits them now.