Centurion Keogh happy as Steelbacks see off Foxes

Northants Steelbacks centurion Rob Keogh felt his side put in a good performance on a 'tricky surface' as they beat Leicestershire Foxes at Grace Road on Saturday.
Rob Keogh hit a century at Grace RoadRob Keogh hit a century at Grace Road
Rob Keogh hit a century at Grace Road

The Steelbacks won by 29 runs in the Royal London One-Day Cup clash as they limited the Foxes to 261 for nine in reply.

Nathan Buck bagged three for 44, while Ben Sanderson and Luke Procter picked up two wickets apiece.

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Earlier, Keogh's 102 from 85 balls helped Northants to rack up 290 for six, with Ben Curran notching 69 from 68 deliveries.

And Keogh said: "It was a good performance: to get up to 290 on a tricky surface was well over par. We thought 230 would have been a reasonable score, so it was a very good total.

"Then we started brilliantly with the ball, early wickets and keeping it tight, and when the run rate started creeping up it was always going to be very tough for them to claw it back.

"When Ben (Curran) and I got together we knew we'd have to rebuild, but we knew if we ran well we could keep the scoreboard ticking on a big ground.

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"Ben knocked it around perfectly and we picked it up nicely towards the end.

"We ticked over at five or six an over because we ran really well, and I was lucky enough to go on to a hundred - on another day it would have been Ben."

It was only the second win in seven 50-over matches for the Steelbacks, while Leicestershire have still only won once.

And Foxes all-rounder Callum Parkinson said: "We're very disappointed.

"We fielded pretty poorly and they got 30 or 40 too many.

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"If we'd restricted them to 240 or 250 it would have been a different game.

"But fair play, Rob Keogh played very nicely and was well supported by Ben Curran.

"We've struggled all tournament to take wickets mid-innings, and that didn't change today.

"Losing Lewis Hill and Colin Ackermann in the same over made life very difficult, though we took it as deep as we could."