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Foxes prepare to defend title

The Leicestershire Foxes are in buoyant mood as they prepare to begin the defence of their Twenty20 crown tomorrow night against local rivals Nottinghamshire.

The Leicestershire Foxes are in buoyant mood as they prepare to begin the defence of their Twenty20 crown tomorrow night against local rivals Nottinghamshire.

The Foxes, the surprise winners of the second Twenty20 Cup last season, have bounced back after a miserable start to the summer by winning their last five competitive games.

Their resurgence has seen them move up to third in the totesport League Second Division and they have also pulled away from the bottom of the Frizzell County Championship.

They are now looking forward to the return of Twenty20 cricket and they begin their campaign with an encounter against Nottinghamshire at Grace Road.

Foxes captain HD Ackerman, who joined the club from Gauteng over the winter, said: "One thing is our guys are a very confident bunch as far as Twenty20 cricket is concerned.

"They have been at finals day two years in a row and were champions last year - so I will be asking a lot of questions before we go out on the field to find out how they went about it."

Ackerman, who played four Twenty20 matches when the new format was introduced in South Africa last winter, believes last year's success has rubbed off on the Foxes this summer.

He added: "I'm starting to catch on to their ideas. We have started to implement some of the things they used in Twenty20 for the Sunday league and 50-over games.

"We have quite a nicely balanced side for Twenty20 and we just hope one of the batters can stand up and do what [Brad] Hodge did last year.

"Twenty20 is extremely huge in this country, and I know our marketing department in particular are targeting another big season in it for us."

Australian batsman Hodge is now with Lancashire and will also be in action against Yorkshire at Headingley in one of eight other matches on the opening night of the competition.

Surrey, the undoubted masters of the game, begin their campaign against Kent at Beckenham.

The Lions won the inaugural Twenty20 Cup in 2003 and last year's final loss to Leicestershire was the first time they had tasted defeat in the shortened game.

Their one-day form this season however has not been good, the Lions being bottom of the totesport League.

The Twenty20 Cup has again been expanded this year with counties now playing all their group rivals home and away before the best eight teams move into a new quarter-final round.

The north, south and mid/west/Wales groups remain unchanged with round-robin matches taking place over the next fortnight. The quarter-finals will be played on July 18 with finals day - featuring the two semis and the final - being held at The Oval on July 30.

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