Leicestershire will take a lead of 382 into the final day of their Rothesay County Championship against neighbours Derbyshire, who will need to pull off the biggest fourth-innings run chase in their history to emerge with a win.
Leicestershire were 291 for eight in their second innings when bad light followed by rain ended play eight overs ahead of the scheduled finish time.
Rehan Ahmed hammered 77 off 59 balls in an explosive start to their second innings after Derbyshire had been bowled out for 393, Netherlands international all-rounder Logan van Beek taking four for 100 to go with his unbeaten 82 on his Leicestershire debut.
By the end of the day, however, the scoring rate had slowed considerably, the home side appearing to take a safety-first approach, intent first on avoiding defeat on a pitch that has yielded runs quickly for most of the game.
At the start of play, it took Leicestershire only 10 balls of the morning session for Leicestershire to take the ninth Derbyshire wicket as day two centurion Martin Andersson was bowled by Van Beek with no addition to his or his team’s overnight score, 138 behind.
The second new ball was not yet four overs old yet it took Leicestershire a further three quarters of an hour to claim the tenth, Blair Tickner and Jack Morley adding 47 before a short delivery from Ben Mike had the New Zealander caught at second slip off the shoulder of the bat.
Derbyshire thus faced a final first-innings deficit of 91, with which they might have been relatively pleased, having been still 345 behind when their sixth wicket fell on Saturday. By lunch they were much less happy.
As was seen in the first innings, Leicestershire’s openers, Sol Budinger and Rehan Ahmed, took on the bowlers from the off and this time the approach proved highly profitable, putting on 86 in just 13 overs before the interval and another 46 afterwards before Derbyshire could stop them.
Ahmed led the charge, his range of shots combining the conventional with the improvised in a way that caused Derbyshire’s bowling plans to unravel at a disconcerting pace. Luis Reece, the left-arm seamer, was taken out of the attack after two overs, as was off-spinner David Lloyd, summoned after just five overs and dispensed with 12 balls later, having gone for 23 runs.
There was no stopping Ahmed. Having reached 51 from 32 balls with his 11th boundary just before lunch, he was briefly checked at the start of the afternoon session before a glancing blow on the helmet inflicted by Tickner seemed to galvanise him afresh.
Tickner persisted in banging the ball in short, in response to which Ahmed persisted in helping it on its way to the boundary until eventually miscueing one to be caught at mid-off.
He stood his ground momentarily as Derbyshire celebrated, perhaps querying whether Tickner had exceeded the limit of two balls bouncing above shoulder height in the same over. Nonetheless, his 77 from 59 balls, with 14 fours and a six (off Tickner) had given Leicestershire’s second innings as good a start as they could have hoped for, putting them 223 ahead.
The middle session went better for Derbyshire in that they took five wickets but the concession of another 150 runs within it stretched Leicestershire’s lead to 327, already 30 more than Derbyshire have successfully chased in the fourth innings in this fixture’s history.
Two more wickets followed swiftly after Ahmed’s demise, Budinger falling leg before with no argument to Reece, Ian Holland tickling one down the leg side to be caught behind off Tickner as 132 without loss became 138 for three.
Lewis Hill and Peter Handscomb added 32 before Andersson obtained an lbw verdict that appeared to surprise the Leicestershire captain, Louis Kimber edging behind in Andersson’s next over.
After tea, Tickner removed Ben Cox via a leading edge to mid-on, Morley had Hill leg before sweeping, after which Leicestershire’s batting became as conservative as it had at any point in the contest as Derbyshire spinners Morley and Lloyd bowled accurately in tandem.
Van Beek and Ben Green added 43 in 19 overs before Morley induced a thin edge from the former, caught behind for 25 from 66 balls, shortly before bad light forced the players off.
Derbyshire captain Wayne Madsen said: “The partnership that Blair Tickner and Jack put together this morning to get us near 400 put us in a much better position. But then they got off to a good start, we didn’t hit the areas we wanted to do with the ball before lunch.
“But we reviewed things over lunch and came back and had two really good sessions and kept ourselves in the game. Blair bowled a hostile spell of pace bowling to put them under pressure in that middle period and then Jack bowled a fantastic spell containing from the bottom end.
“The scoring rate has been above four for much of the game and the pitch has not deteriorated that much and even though we might be facing a big total we have enough batting in our side to feel we could chase it down.
“I think maybe that was why Leicestershire played the way they did towards the end of the day, taking time out of the game, mindful of the fact that this is a pitch where you may be able to score at fours or above even on the last day.”
