Hard graft was the order of the day for Leicestershire's batsman as the LV County Championship match with Gloucestershire got underway at Grace Road.
Though skipper Ramnaresh Sarwan won the toss and elected to bat, life was never going to be easy against a Gloucester attack showing discipline and consistency on a slow pitch.
They were led by an excellent performance from seam bowler Will Gidman, who claimed 5-46 and tied down all the home batters as he stuck rigidly to a good line and length and waited for the batsmen to make mistakes.
His effort was chiefly responsible for the County being dismissed for a modest 269 – though how modest a score that is will only become apparent once the Leicestershire bowlers have got to work. They had five overs at the Gloucester openers before stumps last night and though Charlie Shreck and Nathan Buck tested both Chris Dent and Michael Klinger, they were unable to engineer a breakthrough and the visitors closed on 12-0.
How testing a day it was going to be for the batsmen was evident when Gidman made his mark with the first ball of the morning session, which flattened Greg Smith's off-stump. The County rallied, though, and a fluent partnership of 81 between Angus Robson and Ned Eckersley set the innings moving.
Robson, who has been among the runs at the top of the order this season, again looked full of promise. He drove well on either side of the wicket and it was a considerable disappointment when he edged Liam Norwell to slip for 46 having found the ropes on eight occasions. And that really was the story of the day with batsmen getting themselves in but unable to progress and post the major score which would have carried their side to a substantial total.
Eckersley also made his way to 46, Josh Cobb added 26 and all-rounder Rob Taylor played some cracking strokes in his 31.
The only man to get beyond 50, though, was wicket-keeper Niall O'Brien, who played pretty much the perfect innings given the sluggish nature of the pitch. He showed great patience and waited for the right ball to come along before tucking in, as the boundary count of nine in his half-century might suggest.
He and Taylor added 62 to get the County out of a little spot of trouble when they had slipped to 127-5 in mid-afternoon and O'Brien then found solid late support from Jigar Naik and Buck to help take the score to respectability.
When the new ball arrived after 80 overs, Leicestershire on 227-6 at that point, the Ireland international began to go show a few more signs of aggression – the right decision at that late stage of the day. But having reached 88 after three hours in the middle O'Brien was undone by a ball from Matthew Taylor which pinned the left-hander on the crease and trapped him lbw when a century was just beginning to come into view.
Alex Wyatt, selected for the game with Ant Ireland rested, didn't trouble the scorers before he became Gidman's fifth victim and Buck, who had produced some crisp shots in his 15, was last man out in the 89th over of a day which may not have been full of thrills and spills but was nonetheless intriguing.
