County Championship: Derbyshire complete innings win over Leicestershire

Derbyshire are unbeaten in their three County Championship games this summer

Derbyshire finally overcame dogged resistance to wrap up an innings victory over Leicestershire.

Leicestershire, 172 behind overnight with only four second-innings wickets in hand after trailing by 318 on first innings, were in familiar territory after mounting last-day rearguards to draw their opening two matches.

Louis Kimber made 54 and Callum Parkinson 49 as Leicestershire kept Derbyshire waiting until mid-afternoon before they were all out for 250 as Derbyshire secured victory by an innings and 68 runs.

It was Leicestershire's first innings win over any opponents since beating the Foxes by an innings and 32 runs at Derby in 2011, only the second time in 58 years that Derbyshire have beaten their East Midlands rivals by an innings and the first time at Grace Road since 1896.

Off-spinner Alex Thomson was the pick of the Derbyshire bowlers, taking 3-50 from 39 overs.

Derbyshire also drew their first two fixtures of the season but after Pakistan international Shan Masood's second consecutive double century and a maiden first-class hundred by Mattie McKiernan had given them such a big advantage at the halfway stage of this match, they would have seen this as a wasted opportunity had they failed to win.

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Kimber picked up six boundaries and passed 50 for the fourth time in only his eighth first-class match and Parkinson battled for more than two hours but these were only a few positives that Leicestershire can take forward from a disappointing four days.

Ed Barnes, whose maiden five-wicket haul at the end of the Derbyshire innings was another, stayed with Kimber for the first hour of the final day, but fell four overs after the second new ball was taken, Suranga Lakmal having him caught behind off an inside edge on to pad.

Kimber departed in Lakmal's next over, leg before playing back, before Parkinson and Beuran Hendricks began a ninth-wicket partnership that would span 27 overs either side of lunch.

They survived for the best part of an hour after the interval and had cut the deficit to 80 before Hendricks was caught behind off McKiernan's leg spin for 15.

Parkinson moved to within a single of a half-century of his own but when Derbyshire skipper Billy Godleman called on Anuj Dal to bowl for the first time on the day, the medium pacer had the Leicestershire vice-captain leg before with his first ball to complete victory.

Derbyshire head coach Mickey Arthur:

"I'm immensely proud of the players for the work they have put in and how we have evolved in a team in the short space of time I've been here. We've played 12 days of cricket so far and haven't been outplayed on any of them.

"The boys are starting to believe in themselves. Once you start believing in yourselves as a team that becomes really powerful and I couldn't be more happy at the moment.

"Shan Masood has been outstanding, of course. He has led from the front and has taken a lot of batsmen with him but, as good as he has been, Suranga Lakmal has been outstanding. The spell he bowled was world class. Those two have galvanised the team."

Leicestershire head coach Paul Nixon:

"I'm bitterly disappointed. We didn't get going in this game at all. In the first innings on that pitch we should have been getting 350-plus, but there were too few partnerships. We gave wickets away too easily, our disciplines weren't good enough, our thinking wasn't good enough.

"We didn't do ourselves justice with either bat or ball. We are not getting the basics right and that hurts you even more. We're not being ruthless, we're being soft at the moment and in first-class cricket you have to be better than that.

"I was pleased for Ed Barnes getting his five-for. Mickey Arthur said to me this morning how much he likes Ed's attitude. It would have been easy for him to just go through the motions but he has some personal pride and I'm delighted for him because he has not had a lot of luck so far this season."

Report supplied by the ECB Reporters' Network