Leicestershire's bowlers will need to pull out all the stops if they are to claim a first Championship win of the season today.
Day three of their clash with Gloucestershire at Grace Road ended with the visitors very much favourites to take victory in what, to date, has been a closely-fought affair.
Chasing a target of 188, the visitors reached stumps last night on 16-0 and will back themselves to knock off the remainder of the runs some time around tea today.
A lot will depend on how much County spinners Claude Henderson and Jigar Naik can extract from a fourth-day pitch which, apart from some uneven bounce, is offering little in the way of assistance to the seamers.
That was evident as Ollie Freckingham and Robbie Williams put everything into their new-ball burst at the end of yesterday's evening session but were unable to engineer the breakthrough, even if they did make life uncomfortable for openers Michael Klinger and Chris Dent.
The disappointing aspect of yesterday's play, which developed into a real battle of attrition, was that County were unable to put more runs on the board when a number of their batsmen had played themselves in.
Gloucestershire bowled tightly on a slow pitch and, for much of the time, County's batsmen showed commendable patience at the crease with plenty of time left to play in the match.
Ned Eckersley, Josh Cobb and Ramnaresh Sarwan all made their way into the forties, while Matthew Boyce also batted nicely to get to 35 only to fall to the second new ball as he became Will Gidman's fourth victim.
But none of them was able to go on and post the major score which would have seen County extend their lead some way beyond 200.
In a low-scoring game that would have put the initiative firmly in their hands.
Cobb and Sarwan produced the best partnership of the innings as they added 76 runs for the fifth wicket.
With that pair together, the balance was just starting to tip towards County who, at 145-4, had built a useful lead of 115 with six wickets in hand midway through the afternoon session.
The foundations, though, were wrecked as Leicestershire lost three wickets for the addition of only 12 more runs.
Cobb and Sarwan both succumbed to the medium pace of Benny Howell – who has been a major thorn in County's side with bat and ball – while Shiv Thakor was bowled round his legs by off-spinner Jack Taylor.
With that trio all back in the pavilion, Leicestershire were suddenly on a less-than-comfortable 157-7.
Boyce, with the support of Naik, set about rebuilding and a stand of 50 for the eighth-wicket offered some hope.
Boyce, however, was caught behind, Naik falling in similar fashion for 21.
When Williams was last out with the total on 217, Leicestershire did at least have something to defend. Whether it is sufficient remains to be seen.
