Pinner again in form

Neil Pinner continued his good pre-season form in a pre-season friendly against Derbyshire where the batsmen dominated as the day went on.

Leicestershire were 65-5 at one point after some impressive seam bowling from the visitors in the opening session but only one wicket fell in the 63 overs after lunch.

The game was 45 overs per side but played to LV=CC regulations with lunch at 1pm and tea at 3.40pm. Leicestershire named 13 as follows: Robson, Redfern, Eckersley (c), Boyce, Pinner, Wells, Raine, Hill (wk), Naik, Sykes, Wyatt, Shreck, Sheikh.

Leicestershire posted 163-6 from their 45 overs. Pinner (56*) and Ben Raine (40), batting for the first time for the club in pre-season, shared an important stand of 86 for the sixth wicket.

Angus Robson made 10 before nicking Mark Footitt to Harvey Hosein and the ‘keeper claimed a second victim when Dan Redfern (16) edged a jaffa from Tony Palladino.

Ned Eckersley (16) was the third wicket to fall as he edged Wayne White to Wayne Madsen at first slip before Matthew Boyce (6) drove at Tom Taylor and was held by Billy Godleman at gully. Shiv Thakor trapped Tom Wells (1) leg before to keep Derbyshire on top at that stage.

Pinner and Raine led an excellent recovery and the score moved to 90-5 after 27 overs at lunch. The duo continued to play nicely after the interval, extending their alliance to 86 before Raine picked out Alex Hughes at deep mid-wicket off namesake Chesney.

Pinner moved to a well-executed 50 from 65 balls (9x4) shortly before Leicestershire's innings came to an end. It was Pinner's third consecutive half-century in pre-season and he is yet to be dismissed. Lewis Hill (5*) was the other unbeaten batsman.

In reply, Derbyshire openers Billy Godleman and Ben Slater settled to their task impressively and guided the team through the entire allocation of overs in taking the score to 161-0.

Slater (94*) was happy to play the role of aggressor while Godleman (61*) dropped anchor to start with. The latter batsman became more expansive towards the end of the day; he took 14 off the penultimate over to move beyond 50.

Chesterfield-born Slater, who scored two centuries against County in the final game of the 2014 season, just failed to reach three figures on this occasion.

Although Leicestershire did not get a wicket, the attack was economical and got more useful overs under their belt. It was also good to see Atif Sheikh steaming in from the Bennett End after returning from injury.

Bowling figures for Leicestershire: Sheikh 8-2-20-0, Wyatt 4-1-13-0, Shreck 8-4-10-0, Raine 6-2-10-0, Naik 10-0-52-0, Wells 4-1-25-0, Sykes 5-0-26-0.

The team’s next game is a one-day friendly against Loughborough University on Monday. The game will start at 11am on the university’s campus.