No overseas T20 Blast signing for Leicestershire due to lack of finances

Chief executive Karen Rothery said the club are forecasted to make a loss for a second consecutive year, and therefore the decision has been made not to sign a star from abroad

Financial restraints mean Leicestershire will not be signing an overseas star for this season's Vitality Blast.

The news will come as a blow to Foxes supporters, but chief executive Karen Rothery said with the club forecast to make a loss for a second consecutive year, it had "not been a difficult decision".

"As CEO it's my job to ensure the club is performing and behaving within our financial targets and those targets simply don’t allow us to [make a signing] this year," said Rothery.

"We have a budget for players that we are at maximum capacity on. It's an opportunity for some of our younger players, some of whom are very talented, to show us what they've got.

"We also really need the crowd to be our 12th man, we need our supporters to get behind the team and encourage massive performances."

This year's T20 Blast starts in two weeks' time, with the Foxes playing Lancashire Lightning in a floodlit fixture at the Fischer County Ground on Friday, July 19.

Leicestershire have won the competition three times, but last reached the quarter-finals in 2017, losing to Glamorgan.

However Rothery, who has been in post for three months, insisted she was determined to see the club move forward, and that all possible ways of increasing funding were being examined, including partial development of the club’s Grace Road ground, in Aylestone.

"I want us to be spoken in the same breath as Leicester City and Leicester Tigers, that's the major vision for us over the next few years," she said.

^{Karen Rothery was appointed CEO in January}

"We're at the start of a massive strategic review, our next five-year plan comes out of it, and nothing should be off the table. The Fischer County Ground is a massive ground and maybe we should be thinking about developing it in a different way.

"The business community of Leicester and Leicestershire is a natural partner for us and I'm pretty sure many of them want to help us and be involved much more proactively with the club.

"The amount of goodwill for success at the club is high, and we've already started talking to some of those potential partners.

"We must always take our members' views into account, but there's no question significant investment would make a massive difference to the success of the club, and at this stage nothing has been ruled out."

Rothery believes the new The Hundred competition, which will feature an East Midlands side franchise based at Trent Bridge, Nottingham, must be supported and given every chance to succeed.

The Hundred will launch in July next summer in a five-week men's and women's tournament that is set to feature some of the world's best players in a new 100-ball format.

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"If The Hundred makes cricket more accessible to young people, then we're all for it here at Leicestershire," Rothery said.

"If, as the ECB research suggests, there really are up to 10.5 million more people who will be attracted to the game by this new competition, I think we have to give it the very best shot we can.

"The numbers of people watching county [championship] cricket is not increasing, but the numbers watching T20 are high because it's accessible.

"The Hundred could be the start of participation in the game for many young people, including here in Leicestershire, and there is a persuasive argument that once they have begun participating in white-ball cricket, they will move on to red-ball cricket as well."

Next up for Leicestershire is a crucial championship fixture against resurgent Durham, starting at the Fischer County Ground on Sunday.

The weather-affected draw at Northampton two weeks ago means the match has to be won if Paul Nixon’s men are to retain any real hope of joining the promotion battle from Division Two.

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Courtesy of the ECB reporters network

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