'Baby steps' behind Leicestershire rise - Thomas

Alfonso Thomas was put in permanent charge of Leicestershire in November 2023

Head coach Alfonso Thomas says it is "baby steps" that have taken Leicestershire from the County Championship doldrums to the top of the Division Two table.

They are yet to be beaten this term, having won five of their opening seven matches - as many wins as they managed in the second-tier of the red-ball game between 2019 and 2024.

Between 2011 and 2022, the Foxes had finished bottom of the table seven times. In four of those seasons, they had failed to win a game.

They were so poor their very existence as a first-class county was called into question.

And while they remain the only Championship team to have never been promoted, Thomas has been instrumental in transforming the Foxes' fortunes.

He was interim head coach - a job he initially shared with former England batter James Taylor - when they ended a 12-year wait for silverware by winning the One-Day Cup in 2023.

"To change things around was never going to happen overnight," Thomas told BBC Radio Leicester.

"And I still think we are a season ahead of where I'd like us to be."

At Leicestershire they have a "passion" for proving people wrong.

They lifted two County Championship titles in three years between 1996 and 1998 and are among the English game's most decorated T20 clubs, having won the competition three times.

The One-Day Cup success of two years ago, after a barren period of more than a decade, earned Thomas the role of head coach on a permanent basis, and while his first full season in charge did not bring the same success, the former Proteas seamer says the club made valuable progress.

While they managed only one win, they played out 10 draws and were defeated just twice with the red ball.

"Last year it was more a case of us being tougher to beat," Thomas said.

"Now, I'm not saying that we've gone out to play games that I didn't want to win, because that is not how I operate.

"I wanted us to be a bit more mentally tougher, to fight a bit more and that is why we did well in terms of the baby steps that we wanted to take.

"And it is baby steps at the moment, there is a method and it is working."

What Thomas needed next to turn the Foxes from being a side consistently competitive over four days into a team of winners, was a merciless bowling attack.

"It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what it takes to win four-day games of cricket - you have to take 20 wickets," he said.

Ian Holland has bowled 58 maidens out of a total of 227 overs this season

In Ian Holland, the all-rounder who made his move from Hampshire permanent in the winter after a loan with Leicestershire last season, they have the division's leading wicket-taker with 28 scalps at an average of just over 17.

Netherlands international Logan van Beek is second on the list with 26 wickets, while fellow seam bowler Ben Green, who is on loan from Somerset, has 22 to his name and Tom Scriven has claimed 19.

England international Josh Hull has also picked up 13 wickets in four matches of an injury-hit campaign so far.

"With the make-up of our bowling attack, we have four seamers that are very stingy, very disciplined, and then I have got a bit of X-factor with a Josh Hull and a Ben Mike - that seemed to work and it is working at the moment," Thomas said.

And with a run of games with the Kookaburra ball - to replace the seamer-friendly Duke ball - coming up in June and July, Thomas anticipates England spin-bowling all-rounder Rehan Ahmed will be able to impose himself more in a bowling attack that will also feature fellow spinner Liam Trevaskis.

"The next couple of games will be really key for us with how we navigate ourselves," Thomas said.

"It's four Kookaburra games, which is a different challenge, but I'm sure it is a challenge the boys will be taking head on."