FP Trophy (at Oakham School): Warwickshire 187-8 (T Frost 55 no) v Leicestershire 53-2 (19.3 overs). Warwickshire beat Leicestershire by 8 runs (D/L Method).

Sometimes it's hard to judge what amounts to progress. Just as much as the centre of Birmingham is currently something of a building site, so the region's cricket team is undergoing a period of redevelopment.

This time last year Warwickshire had just finished joint top of their group in this competition. Yesterday, however, despite an encouraging victory over a decent Leicestershire side, Warwickshire bowed out of the Friends Provident Trophy with just two wins from six completed games. Doesn't seem like progress, does it?

Yet in the last couple of weeks there have been a few encouraging signs. Yesterday, for example, Warwickshire opened the bowling with two young, 'home grown' bowlers, while their batting was reliant on two more locally produced players, Navdeep Poonia and veteran Tony Frost.

More importantly, they held their nerve under pressure and managed to win a game they could easily have lost. The club are at the start of a long journey, but at least they seem to be heading in the right direction now.

"I feel we've made progress in the last ten days," Ashley Giles said last night. "We're still not playing as well as we can, but we're showing glimpses. We played a side of 11 England qualified players, didn't panic when we were under pressure and 'Frosty' just gets better with age. Several of the guys stood up to be counted and some of the others will have learnt a lot."

It may be that Warwickshire are able to accelerate the improvement process by signing one or two of the host of players to which they have made formal requests over the last few days. The fact that two of them are to be offered six-figure salary packages would suggest Warwickshire's case could be quite persuasive.

Preparations for the Twenty20 remain up in the air, however. Plans for signing Luke Pomersbach have been hit by difficulties in securing a work permit for him. The fact that he has played only one international game for Australia means he does not fulfil the somewhat spurious quality regulations devised to regulate such signings.

"It seems ridiculous to me," Ashley Giles said. "It's pretty incredible that an exciting young guy who could well play Test cricket for Australia isn't allowed to play here. But we might well have a problem with the work permit so we might have to look at some of those other options."

The process of signing Chris Martin is proving less complicated, however, and the club hope to be in a position to make an announcement by the end of the week.

At 102 for six yesterday Warwickshire looked doomed to suffer another loss. Neil Carter fell in the first over, skying a catch back to the bowler, before Ian Westwood, Jonathan Trott and Jim Troughton all fell to thin edges as they struggled to adapt to a pitch offering some pace and bounce to the seamers

Navdeep Poonia (84 balls, four fours) resisted, however. He has grown frustrated by his lack of opportunity in recent weeks, but took his chance here with a patient innings that showed he is beginning to add temperament and technique to his undoubted raw ability.

When he patted a tame return catch, however, and Michael Powell was somewhat unfortunate to be adjudged leg before, Warwickshire were in deep trouble.

A calm stand of 59 in 13 overs between Frost (72 balls, six fours) and Ant Botha (55 balls, three fours and a six) gave them hope, however.

Frost, who never made a limited-overs half-century before his 'retirement' at the end of 2006, has now made two in two innings. Hitting the ball with customary elegance, he also provided the calm head that ensured Warwickshire gave themselves a chance of victory. Instead of trying to set a total of 220 he realised that, in the teeth of the gale in which this game was played, anything approaching 200 could be competitive.

Leicestershire will refl]ect, however, that had they kept their heads, they would surely have won this game. With rain always likely to intervene, the cautious start to their innings made sense. They scored only 24 off the first ten overs as Naqaash Tahir and the quietly impressive Chris Woakes bowled immaculate spells, but remained ahead of the Duckworth Lewis rate by maintaining all ten wickets.

The introduction of the decidedly sharp Neil Carter seemed to rattle the hosts, however. Hylton Ackerman perished to a reckless swing across the line before Jim Allenby attempted a silly single to Troughton. The direct hit ran the batsman out and ensured that Leicestershire slipped behind the DL rate just as the heavens opened.