Pictured: Stephen Foot and Paul Nixon

A high profile and emotional victory for Leicestershire in cricket's showpiece event reaped huge dividends for the club's chief sponsor the Oval group.

The team's triumph in the Friends Life Twenty20 Final capped off a winning streak that earned massive exposure for the Oval brand and strengthened the company's successful association with the world of cricket.

The result is a fitting reward for the insurance broking and financial services group, which has been instrumental in turning round the fortunes of "the Foxes" since becoming main sponsor.

The Oval name features on Leicestershire's team shirts, earning hours of prime time television exposure during the Twenty20 contest as well as pages of national and regional newspaper coverage.

Oval is already closely associated with the sport of cricket. Group Chief Executive Phillip Hodson, a former Yorkshire player, is President Elect of the MCC, the world's most famous cricket club, whose members include cricketing legends such as Sir Ian Botham and Sir Garfield Sobers.

Oval's East Midlands Managing Director, Stephen Foot, said: "As proud sponsors of Leicestershire County Cricket Club, we are absolutely delighted with this result. The team played a phenomenal game of cricket and thoroughly deserved the win.

We have had a relationship with the Club for over 25 years, initially as their insurance broker, and we then developed the relationship to include sponsorship. There has been excellent commitment by the Club to work with the Oval group to develop our profile and develop our business too."

Leicestershire's star wicketkeeper Paul Nixon said: "I'm overjoyed to have won the trophy with the support of the Oval group as head sponsors, who backed us through thick and thin. I'd like to personally thank both Stephen Foot and Phillip Hodson, and it's wonderful we've won this trophy in the year that Phillip is President Elect of the MCC. It's so important for us at Leicestershire to be backed by quality companies, and we're absolutely delighted with our Oval group partnership."

The Foxes reached the Twenty20 Final when Will Jefferson hit a winning six in the one-over eliminator - the cricketing equivalent of football's penalty shootout - against Lancashire after a drawn semi-final.

In the Final itself, Josh Cobb took four wickets and was named man of the match, but the real story was Nixon, playing his last ever match for the club, who took a flying catch to dismiss Somerset's danger man, Kieron Pollard.

Two days after the Twenty20 victory, the Oval name was on show again in front of a sell-out crowd at Grace Road as Leicestershire took on India ahead of the tourists' one-day series against England.