Birmingham Bears won their first match of the 2014 Natwest T20 Blast by overcoming Leicestershire Foxes at Grace Road this afternoon.
Home side Leicestershire won the toss and chose to bowl, but didn't make a breakthrough until the sixth over when Rob Taylor removed Varun Chopra for 24.
The Bears' other opener, William Porterfield, was the star of the day, scoring 67 off just 46 balls with seven boundaries.
Laurie Evans (23) and Ateeq Javid (27) were the only other Bears to get into double figures as they finished on 175-8 from their 20 overs.
The hosts' reply got off to a bad start as their first three batsmen, Josh Cobb (9), Niall O'Brien (4) and Greg Smith (8), all failed to impose themselves on the scoreboard.
The middle order of Ramnaresh Sarwan (37), Ned Eckersley (18) and Tom Wells (51) responded, but the Foxes were always behind and never came close to threatening the Bears' total, eventually falling 25 runs short.
Pascal Lemesre
