Shaikh and Patel Hundreds Seal Five-Wicket Foxes Victory

Rishi Patel’s 110 trumped Ryan Patel’s earlier 101-ball 97 as Leicestershire beat Surrey by five wickets at a sold-out Guildford.

Hamza Shaikh, a 20-year old who recently signed from Warwickshire in the search for more senior cricket, also impressed with 104 not out – his maiden List A century – as Leicestershire cruised to 273 for five to win with 20 balls to spare.

The two Patels, both openers and both wearing a number 26 shirt, played two of the three dominant innings of the day – with Ryan Patel also dismissing his namesake while taking three for 44 from nine overs of medium pace in a heroic effort to prevent Leicestershire from chasing down Surrey’s 270 for nine.

Rishi Patel and Shaikh compiled a decisive third wicket stand of 122, a Leicestershire List A record for the wicket against Surrey, before Shaikh took over with four sixes as he and burly South African all-rounder Ruan de Swardt, with two sixes in a cameo 18, proved more than equal to scoring 61 from the last 10 overs.

Adam Thomas, also 20, had earlier helped Ryan Patel to add 144 in 27 overs for Surrey’s second wicket but, overall, the home side did not capitalise fully on Woodbridge Road’s short boundaries and sun-baked outfield.

De Swardt had earlier claimed four for 49 from his ten overs while Josh Davey finished with three for 46 in an excellent Foxes bowling performance.

Shaikh completed his hundred just before the end but it was Patel – off to join Hampshire in 2027 – who spearheaded the chase from the moment he flicked Benji Floros’s first ball for six at the start of the second over and then just as contemptuously extra cover drove the second ball for four.

In all, Patel struck two sixes and 15 fours from 109 balls before Ryan Patel – recalled for a third spell – had him caught at cover from his first ball back.

By then, though, Leicestershire were 182 for three, with almost 15 overs remaining, and the stage was set for Shaikh to guide them home.

Surrey, put in, lost Dom Sibley for 11 in the ninth over when he tickled a legside catch to the keeper off Davey, and Leicestershire’s seamers were testing with the new ball on a pitch with a little bit of early life in it.

Patel and Thomas, however, built their partnership in mature and measured fashion, with Patel providing much of the acceleration as he went to his half-century in 56 balls.

There were two legside sixes as the left-hander impressed again on the ground where, in the same competition in 2021, he scored a remarkable 70-ball 131 with no fewer than 10 maximums.

Thomas, in form following a match-winning 82 not out in Surrey’s victory against Lancashire at Sedbergh School on Tuesday, stroked six fours in another fine innings but his dismissal – caught at deep backward square leg in the 36^th over –gave de Swardt the first of his four scalps.

Rory Burns kept Patel company for a while but Josh Blake was leg-before to de Swardt first ball after Patel had swatted to deep mid wicket three runs short of a fifth List A hundred.

Burns, for 27, was another to fall to a catch in the deep and, collectively, the Surrey lower order could only offer the odd big shot as the innings somewhat fell away against a disciplined Leicestershire attack.