After beating Middlesex at Lord’s for the first time in 45 years last month, County Championship Division Two leaders Leicestershire were made to toil against the same opponents on home soil.
Opener Sam Robson (133) posted his first championship hundred of the season as Middlesex finished on 336-5, after Josh De Caires – still looking for his maiden first-class century after 37 attempts – scored 76 in an opening stand of 173.
Leus Du Plooy, captain in the absence of Toby Roland-Jones, who is sidelined by a gastric bug, was out for 56 in the penultimate over.
In a Leicestershire attack without four of the bowlers that forged that victory at Lord’s, seamer Roman Walker took the first three wickets to fall and ended the day with career-best figures of 3-57.
The pitch had a healthy covering of grass, but where the sight of a similar surface in April with a Dukes ball in hand would have had a bowler licking his lips, a Kookaburra on a bone-dry day in late June is a different proposition.
It made for another of the attritional days that are becoming familiar when the Kookaburra ball is in use – not perhaps the best day to have chosen for the supporter-led County Cricket Day initiative where Leicestershire, among others, offered free admission.
Perhaps mindful of Monday’s forecast for still hotter conditions, and how the contest might look on day four, Leicestershire captain Peter Handscomb handed Middlesex the chance to bat first.
His side extended their lead by virtue of a draw with Glamorgan last week and may be happy simply not to lose this one, but Middlesex, next to bottom, desperately need a win.
They had 119-0 by lunch as Robson and De Caires completed half-centuries with boundaries off Logan Van Beek in the final over before the break.
It left the home attack wicketless in the opening session of a match for the first time this season.
They were without Tom Scriven, Rehan Ahmed, Ben Mike and Josh Hull to injury, while their leading wicket-taker, Ian Holland, is playing Major League Cricket for Washington Freedom. Nonetheless it was a disappointing session for the home attack, who failed to create a real chance.
Middlesex added a further 100 between lunch and tea for the loss of two wickets. Almost all of the meaningful action from the hosts took place in the space of five deliveries as Walker, playing only his fifth Championship match in four seasons at Grace Road, dismissed De Caires and Max Holden.
Finding some movement off the seam with a ball 47 overs old, Walker had the former caught behind off an inside edge, and, bowling around the wicket to the left-handed Holden, straightened one enough to pass the outside edge and clip off stump, removing Middlesex’s leading scorer for a duck.
The 24-year-old ex-Glamorgan seamer – in the last year of his current contract – picked up his third wicket 10 overs after tea as Robson, whose hundred had come off 185 balls, for once failed to control his shot and was caught at gully.
It was a decent catch by Sol Budinger, yet merely a warm-up for what might be the best of the 25-year-old’s career – so far or still to come – five overs later as new batter Ryan Higgins flashed at Ben Green.
Now at backward point, Budinger dived for a ball going past him to his left, six inches above the ground, and somehow caught it with his right hand. That left Middlesex 271-4.
They would have been 286-5 had Green, at mid-off, not dropped a dolly chance offered by Ben Geddes off Van Beek on 11, although he at least partially atoned by having Du Plooy caught at second slip when looking well set for day two.
ECB Reporters’ Network supported by Rothesay
