Foxes and Glamorgan draw

Leicestershire versus Glamorgan, Specsavers County Championship, Day 4:

SCORECARD | Available through ESPN Cricinfo HERE 

INTERVIEW | Head Coach Pierre de Bruyn spoke to BBC Radio Leicester's Richard Rae at stumps, the interview is HERE

HIGHLIGHTS | The highlights of the final day are available HERE

RESULT | Match drawn, Leicestershire 12 points, Glamorgan 13 points

REPORT | Leicestershire gave it everything but their victory bid was ultimately thwarted by battling Glamorgan and the elements in the Specsavers County Championship match at the Fischer County Ground.

Mark Pettini made an unbeaten 110 (169b, 10x4, 1x6) as County declared their second innings at 360-6, setting Glamorgan 355 to win, initially off 57 overs.

The Foxes reduced the Welsh County to 24-3 and 57-4 before Aneurin Donald (66*) and Chris Cooke (24*) dug in to steer the visitors to 144-4 with an unbroken stand of 87. Ben Raine was again the leading wicket-taker for the Foxes, taking 2-23 to go with his first innings haul of 4-105.

Leicestershire did not have much luck with Raine and Clint McKay both having to leave the field through injury having been without Zak Chappell for the first innings for the same reason. The team's cause was also not helped by the loss of ten overs on day four; eight of which were eradicated due to three stoppages for either rain, bad light or a combination of the two, and two overs for the change of innings.

Resuming at 200-3, Leicestershire ultimately added 160 runs for the loss of three wickets in 32 overs on the final day but did not have it all their own way in the early exchanges.

County lost two early wickets to Marchant de Lange as Ned Eckersley (73) edged to Nick Selman at second slip and Cameron Delport (1) drove uppishly to Lukas Carey at mid-off, Leicestershire leading by 199 at the fall of their fifth wicket.

Boundaries were hard to come by and when one did arrive, it came of the outside edge of Pettini and flew straight through the vacant third slip position, much to the despair of Carey.

Spin then entered the equation as Andrew Salter bowled around the wicket from the Pavilion End, and the Foxes immediately took the attack to him.

Hill used his feet to loft narrowly over the head of the fielder at mid-off before rocking back to cut away a second four before the over was completed.

A dramatic 70th over from Carey saw Pettini hit a sixth four before recording his second half-century of the game with a single from the 106th ball of his innings while Hill rocketed a drive through mid-on and hooked down to long-leg.

The duo continued to up the tempo, Hill taking the stand beyond 50 and extending Leicestershire’s lead to 250 with his fifth four before adding a further boundary in the 73rd over. 

Leicestershire’s score had reached 267-5 after 76 overs with Pettini on 60 and Hill 33 when a shower arrived at 12.25pm, and lunch was brought forward so that only five overs were lost.

The Foxes led by 261 with a minimum of 71 overs remaining in the day, and Pettini and Hill continued to be aggressive against spinners Salter and Colin Ingram after the interval.

The stand had produced 86 runs when Hill selflessly departed in the pursuit of quick runs, de Lange taking a fine catch running backwards at mid-on off the bowling of Salter.

Glamorgan took the new ball immediately but Pettini expertly dispatched the first delivery sent down by Hogan to the mid-wicket boundary. When the batsman drove handsomely down the ground to take his boundary account into double figures, he was within five runs of a century.

Raine (29*, 23b) launched two mighty sixes to deep mid-wicket off de Lange before Pettini moved to a 163-ball hundred, Leicestershire’s first of the campaign.

The batsman followed up with a maximum over mid-on and Raine gave de Lange some more treatment, striking another six in the direction of his first two, before Eckersley called in his troops after an unbroken stand of 69.

After a brief stoppage for bad light, McKay and Raine ensured the chase was effectively over before it had chance to begin, the Victorian pinning Selman bang in front before the all-rounder had David Lloyd (4) held by Harry Dearden at second slip to leave Glamorgan at 23-2 after ten overs.

Conditions became gloomy again and the players took an early tea. With three more overs being lost due to the breaks in the afternoon session, Glamorgan now required a further 334 runs from 44 overs with Leicestershire needing eight wickets.

Raine struck again upon the resumption as Ingram was beaten by one that jagged back to rap him on the pads and Leicestershire were well on top with the light now considerably better.

Captain Jacques Rudolph (19) had battled hard at the other end but there was nothing he could do about a brute of a delivery from the lively Chappell at the Bennett End, the ball bouncing to take the glove on its way through to Lewis Hill.

Glamorgan had now lost their top four with 35.2 overs still remaining and Charlie Shreck thought he’d claimed a fifth wicket with the score at 65 when Donald edged one that got big on him, but Delport couldn’t hold on in diving forward at gully.

It was to prove the last opportunity of the day as Donald went on to post 50 from 83 balls, including nine fours, knuckled down alongside Cooke.

Eckersley rotated his bowlers in a bid to make the breakthrough, including introducing Neil Dexter, Dearden and Delport, and also set imaginative fields, but the Foxes had to settle for twelve points from the hard-fought contest.

Leicestershire now take a break from the Specsavers County Championship with the next eight games being in the Royal London One-Day Cup, starting at Lancashire on Friday (2pm start).

Bowling figures for Leicestershire: Chappell 12-4-28-1, McKay 3-2-4-1, Raine 7-3-23-2, Shreck 13-2-31-0, Dexter 5-1-21-0, Dearden 2-0-11-0, Delport 4-1-15-0.