Leicestershire finally have their ticket back to Division One, 22 years after last tasting top-flight Championship cricket, and acting captain Ian Holland made no attempt to hide what it means. Yet, within minutes of the draw with Gloucestershire that sealed the deal, he was already looking up rather than back.
“There’s a lot of emotion, excitement, relief in the dressing-room,” Holland said. “We’re savouring this moment to get promoted, but it’s not a full celebration just yet because now we want to win the trophy as champions.”
The handshake came late on a damp Thursday at Grace Road, the match petering out once the weather ruled out any realistic push for a result. The single point for the draw still left Leicestershire more than 50 clear of Derbyshire and Middlesex, who had earlier cancelled each other out at Lord’s. Only Glamorgan, 25 behind, can mathematically deny the Foxes the Division Two crown in the final fortnight.
Holland stayed unbeaten on 27 when the sides walked off. Modest numbers maybe, but symbolic all the same: the club’s stand-in leader still on duty at the decisive moment.
“This today isn’t just a six-month thing, it’s been a few years in the making,” he explained, crediting director of cricket Claude Henderson, head coach Alfonso Thomas and outgoing chief executive Sean Jarvis. “The players have been able to go out and play the way we have this year because things are right.”
He is well placed to judge. When Holland first spoke to Henderson about moving north, the vision sold to him sounded ambitious for a county then rooted to the Championship’s basement. “When I first met Claude and Alfonso, I got a sense of the trajectory that the club was moving in, and that was really attractive. I was always optimistic that we would get promoted at some stage, but I think it’s probably happened a little bit quicker than we thought.”
No-one inside the ground needed reminding how bleak the mid-2010s had been: winless streaks, bottom-place finishes, crowds that could be counted in minutes rather than hundreds. That backdrop makes the recent revival – first the 2023 One-Day Cup triumph over Hampshire, and now this – feel both overdue and faintly surreal.
“If you’d asked me at the start of the season, are we going to get promoted this year? I wouldn’t have put my house on it, but it’s been great that things have clicked and we’ve played the cricket we have. Getting those wins early on gave us a really good head start, which has paid dividends.”
Key to that early head of steam was the form of England all-rounder Rehan Ahmed. Not many 20-year-olds are asked to open and bowl leg-spin, fewer still respond by thumping five centuries in ten matches and taking 23 wickets at 19.00. Holland was quick to single him out.
“There have been contributions from everybody. Rehan has got five hundr”
The sentence trailed away as Holland spotted a reporter looking down at a suddenly drenched notebook, yet the point stood: this hasn’t been a one-man crusade. Chris Wright’s ability to nip it around new and old, Ben Mike’s late-order hitting, and Louis Kimber’s calmness at three have all supplied pivotal moments. Even the short-term signings – Australia’s Peter Handscomb and veteran seamer Jackson Bird – slotted in neatly.
From here, the equation is uncomplicated. Two fixtures remain, starting at Derby, and seven points separate Leicestershire from mathematical certainty of finishing top. Win once and the conversation moves on to how they might survive – and thrive – among the elite next April. Holland, for now, will permit himself only a glance in that direction.
“We’re savouring this moment to get promoted, but it’s not a full celebration just yet because now we want to win the trophy as champions.”
Promotion secured, mission only half-done.
