Day 4: Rain deprives Leicester of first Lords win in 39 years

Middlesex 349 and 223

Leicestershire 268 and 226-5

Match Drawn

Prost Player of the Day: Colin Ackermann

Leicestershire hadn’t won here for 39 years and came as close today as they have in that 39 years. Only the frequent interruptions from rain prevented them from knocking off their 305 total with an unexpected ease, falling 79 short when play was called off for the day.

Paul Horton, Hasan Azad, Mark Cosgrove and Harry Dearden all got in but didn’t go on to high scores. Once again, Colin Ackermann was the top scorer with 70 not out, giving him 133 for the game.

Middlesex were quite frankly lousy today. They failed to make use of the cloud cover to generate swing in the morning and failed to find too many demons in the pitch despite it breaking up more as the day went on. Azad was dropped twice, there were eight wides and during their most dominant spell, Azad especially was given too many balls he could safely leave.

None of Middlesex’s four seamers looked as terrifying as Chris Wright and Tom Taylor had been yesterday, when they had reduced Middlesex to 114-8.

The home side are now three games without a win in the County Championship.

THE DAY’S PLAY

Middlesex began the day earnestly hoping that the cloud cover would help the ball swing. However, the umpires pulled the players off for bad light just 17 minutes into the day’s play. This was preceded by lengthy discussion suggesting neither side wanted to abandon play.

Eleven minutes later play resumed but the benchmark for bad light had been set.

51 was up when James Harris trapped Ateeq Javid leg before. The game was again the epitome of neck and neck. 15 runs later Ethan Bamber trapped captain Paul Horton the same way.

Ateeq made seven runs from 42 balls then made the next eight runs from his next three deliveries, the other of which was a dropped catch at slip which went in and out of Sam Robson’s hands. Azad was dropped again on 15, this time by Stevie Eskinazi.

Ollie Rayner claimed the day’s third LBW with the big hitting Cosgrove being the victim. After lunch, the blessed Azad and the on form Colin Ackermann moved on despite frequent weather interruptions, reaching a fifty partnership just after 3 o’clock.

Then came the turning moment, when James Harris bowled one that didn’t rise at all and trapped Azad for the fourth leg before.

Rain and bad light then caused third, fourth and fifth delays. The rain delay at 182-4 was the longest lasting half an hour. Ackermann and Dearden were the two men in, resuming the partnership that had been Leicester’s most productive in the first innings.

Leicester looked on their way to winning when Helm unexpectedly removed Dearden’s leg stump with an excellent inswinger to move them back to 206-5, still wanting 99. But with Ackermann still there, the visitors’ hopes were still high. They left the field again at 5pm with Leicester still 79 runs short, never to return.

Scorecard