Yorkshire captain Andrew Gale claimed this week was pivotal to his side's chances of success in this season's Friends Life t20.

After one of their three games it is not looking good as the Tykes last night slumped to an eight-wicket defeat to Leicestershire.

It was their third defeat in four games in the competition and it means they remain second bottom of the North Group with six matches left.

Not that Gale deserves any of the blame for his county's latest setback. The skipper was his team's stand-out performer on another difficult day for Yorkshire.

After losing the toss and being asked to bat he made 67 at Grace Road.

However, with only three of his team-mates making it into double figures alongside him, the Foxes were only set 145 to win.

It never looked enough with Josh Cobb and Andrew McDonald then leading their side to victory with 22 balls to spare.

"We did not get enough runs, simple," said a disappointed Gale. I thought we were 20 runs short on what was a good pitch. That has been the story of our season though - we are not making big enough scores with the bat."

"We have to be more ruthless."

Yorkshire might want to look at Cobb and McDonald for inspiration as they search for an end to their poor run.

They smashed the Tykes attack to all parts of the ground in a thrilling opening partnership.

By the time Rich Pyrah finally ended it in the eighth over, to remove Cobb for 46 off only 25 balls, they had made their way to 74 for one.

It was the first of two wickets for the all-rounder, but McDonald continued on to finish on 59 not-out to help his side to an emphatic victory.

Earlier, Gale's innings was the only positive thing to come out of Yorkshire's effort with the bat.

He only needed 56 balls to make his 67, whilst Joe Sayers made an entertaining 18 on his return to the t20 side after a two-year absence and Ajmal Shahzad struck a quick-fire 20.

However, this was as good as it got, with a spell of 52 balls without a boundary doing the damage in the middle of the Tykes innings.

It meant the slumped from 70 for one after eight overs to 144 all-out.

Then came the Foxes blitz, to condemn Yorkshire to their fifth defeat of the tournament.

Gale added: "The confidence is low. We will never say die though. There are still six games left and if we can win five or maybe six of them, then we can still qualify for the quarter-finals."