Hampshire thwart Ward's hopes of rediscovering his form

Hampshire 311 Leicestershire 98-5

Hampshire have drawn five consecutive matches since their only Championship win in early May and after a stop-start day of slow progress here yesterday it is possible this one will end in the same unsatisfactory fashion, with more rain forecast today.

Rain accounted for 41 overs, which was bad luck for Hampshire, given the success they enjoyed in an uninterrupted morning, reducing Leicestershire to 44 for 4 in reply to 311 all out. Five down at the close, they still need 64 to avoid the follow-on.

A slow pitch prone to occasionally variable bounce seemed to inhibit Leicestershire's approach, although the quality of Hampshire's bowling played a part in keeping the flow of runs to a trickle. Alan Mullally and Dmitri Mascarenhas were into the seventh over before the scorers needed to record a run, by which time Trevor Ward was already back in the pavilion.

The Leicestershire opener is having a miserable season. Yesterday's duck left him with just 219 runs from 12 innings, quite a contrast with the prosperity he enjoyed last summer.

This season, he has failed to reach double figures in six attempts at Grace Road, which might explain his reluctance to accept his fate yesterday until the umpire Mike Harris, answering Mullally's appeal for caught behind, was compelled to raise a dismissive finger.

Not that his colleagues covered themselves with glory subsequently. After Iain Sutcliffe and Darren Maddy had painstakingly taken the score to 26 in the 21st over, the latter provided the wicketkeeper Nic Pothas with a second catch when he loosely drove a ball from Chris Tremlett.

Two wickets fell in consecutive overs at 35 and 36. Sutcliffe, surprised when Mascarenhas found extra bounce, edged the ball to third slip before Darren Stevens, trying to cut the off-spinner Shaun Udal, became a third victim for Pothas.

A further wicket for Mascarenhas, who nipped one back literally to split Rob Cunliffe's middle stump, was Hampshire's only subsequent success in 26 overs. But such disappointment as the captain Robin Smith might have felt with slow progress was overshadowed by his concern over his mother, Joy, a diabetic, who was taken ill while watching and needed attention from paramedics, Smith leaving the field to be with her. Happily, she recovered at the scene.