Leicestershire Dominate Day One On Red-Ball Return

By Jon Culley, ECB Reporters' Network

Leicestershire’s bid to win promotion in the LV=Insurance County Championship to go with their first one-day final for 22 years started impressively as they returned to red-ball action at the Uptonsteel County Ground.

Gloucestershire, the side they bowled out for 125 here last Tuesday to clinch their place in the Metro Bank One-Day Cup final, fared scarcely better, dismissed for 159 by Leicestershire’s seam attack despite Chris Dent’s half-century.

Tom Scriven, with a career-best four for 30, and veteran Chris Wright (three for 30) exploited a green pitch, with much of the damage done between lunch and tea as Gloucestershire collapsed from 77 for one.

In reply, against a visiting attack lacking three of their top four wicket-takers, Leicestershire were 103 for two in their first innings at the close, with opener Rishi Patel closing in on 1,000 first-class runs in a season for the first time in his career, on 60 not out.

Leicestershire, who have a game in hand but probably need a victory in this match to stand a realistic chance of going up alongside runaway Division Two leaders Durham, had two players making their county debuts in wicketkeeper Ben Cox, who has joined initially on loan from Worcestershire, and 33-year-old Pakistan international batter Umar Amin, signed for the last four matches of the season in place of Peter Handscomb, who has returned to Australia.

Bowl first looked the obvious choice for whoever won the toss but in the event it was the losers, Gloucestershire, who had the better of the opening morning, going to lunch at 73 for one.

Leicestershire might argue that they were unlucky with the balls that did whistle past the edge, while the visitors benefited disproportionately from the last two overs of Wiaan Mulder’s opening spell as Ben Charlesworth picked up three fours from each, albeit a couple through third man and another off an inside edge past off stump.  Yet one wicket was certainly fewer than home skipper Lewis Hill would have hoped for.

It was claimed by Scriven, who took over from Mulder at the Pavilion End and conceded only three runs in seven overs. In the midst of that was an excellent delivery that beat Charlesworth’s inside edge and clipped the off bail.

Mulder - 0 for 35 from five overs first up - had a much more effective second spell, two for seven from nine, either side of lunch, with both wickets coming after a change of ball immediately after the interval. The South African all-rounder bowled Ollie Price past a defensive bat and beat Miles Hammond, another of Gloucestershire’s predominant left-handers, with a fullish ball into the front pad.

Those wickets set up Leicestershire for a much more productive afternoon. Chris Dent completed a 138-ball half century with a nice shot through the covers off Scriven for his seventh boundary only to leg before to the same bowler without addition.

Chris Wright, in his 200th first-class match, picked up his 577th wicket through a misjudgement by James Bracey, who was bowled shouldering arms before Zafar Gohar became a first victim behind the stumps for Cox, giving Scriven his third success.

Josh Shaw was dropped at first slip on one off Matt Salisbury but added only seven before he became a debut lbw victim for Amin, leaving Gloucestershire 145 for seven at tea.

Amin, who bowls medium pace off a five or six-step run-up, has not played international cricket for five years and no first-class cricket since November last year, yet is a familiar figure to some in the Leicestershire dressing room. He has spent this summer playing for Cavaliers and Carrington in the Nottinghamshire Premier League - alongside Leicestershire all-rounder Rehan Ahmed and interim head coach Alfonso Thomas.

Half a dozen overs after tea, Gloucestershire were all out. Harry Tector, on Championship debut for the county, was leg before trying to work to leg off Wright, who then had Zaman Akhter caught at second slip off the shoulder of the bat. Luke Charlesworth - younger brother of Ben - lasted five balls on his first class debut, falling leg before pushing forward as Scriven claimed his fourth wicket.

It left Leicestershire to face 24 overs before the close. They quickly lost the recalled Sol Budinger, bowled through the gate by Shaw, before Hill edged Dom Goodman to gully for 21, but Patel, unfazed by giving what looked like a half-chance to point on 46 off Akhter, went past fifty for the seventh time this season to take his first-class aggregate to 950.