Rain hits Grace Road

Date: Saturday 29 May 2010

Leicestershire closed on 23-2 against Middlesex in the LV=County Championship after a rain-hit day at Grace Road.

Matthew Boyce was unbeaten on 18 at stumps but the team lost Will Jefferson and Paul Nixon in the passage of play possible. James Taylor was the other not out batsman.

It was a throughly miserable day and after lots of rain and numerous inspections by umpires Nick Cook and Mark Benson, play was finally able to get underway at 5pm.

That meant in theory that 24 overs of play were possible and Middlesex captain Shaun Udal won the toss and elected to field first. However, that was reduced to 9.2 overs as bad light curtailed play early.

Leicestershire showed two changes to the side that lost to Glamorgan as Jefferson and Jacques du Toit came in for Josh Cobb and Jigar Naik. Middlesex named former Leicestershire favourite Iain O'Brien in their team.

There was an early blow with a bizarre dismissal. There was a half-hearted appeal for leg before by Tim Murtagh when bowling to Jefferson and the ball rebounded to second slip. Neil Dexter threw down the stumps and the batsman hadn't got his foot down in time.

It was the worst possible start and Nixon came to the crease to partner Boyce. It was difficult for the batsmen as the ball seamed around and Murtagh and O'Brien were extracting movement off the surface.

With the outfield still damp, threes were on the agenda and Boyce had three of them early on as he moved into double figures.

It was a testing period and Nixon fell to his former team-mate. He nibbled one behind and John Simpson took the catch.

Boyce launched into a trademark cover drive for the day's first boundary and then played nicely through backward point. However, the gloom then decended to put paid to the day for good.