Rain Restricts Nottinghamshire to Brief Start Against Leicestershire

Defending Rothesay County Champions and Division One leaders Nottinghamshire made what they could of a rain-disrupted first day against relegation-threatened Leicestershire, reaching 42 without loss from the 10.3 overs that were possible at Trent Bridge.

Skipper Haseeb Hameed is unbeaten on 32, having hit six boundaries in difficult conditions under a leaden sky after his counterpart Ian Holland won the toss and opted to bowl first on a green-tinged surface. Haseeb passed the personal milestone of 9,000 first-class career runs.

Play could not begin in earnest until almost six hours after the 10.30am September start time and although the rain did not return it was not long before bad light became an issue and umpires James Middlebrook and Neil Pratt decided it was too dark to continue.

Earlier, after rain had washed out the opening session, the players had been able to make a 1.30pm start only to be forced off again after a single over, although the six balls bowled by Josh Davey were enough for Hameed to find the boundary twice and, with the addition of a single, to add the nine runs he needed at start of play to reach the 9,000-run mark.

Thankfully, the forecast for day two is much better and both sides will be eager to make up for lost time in a match that both sides need to win for different reasons.

With the Rothesay County Championship season heading for a thrilling finale at both ends of the Division One table, title-holders Nottinghamshire began the 11th of the 14 rounds with a slender four-point lead over Somerset, who had the same advantage over third-placed Warwickshire.

Leicestershire, meanwhile, remain in peril in ninth place, but two wins in their last three fixtures have lifted them 16 points ahead of bottom-of-the-table Hampshire.

More importantly, they have closed the gap between themselves and third-bottom Surrey - champions three years in a row before losing out to Nottinghamshire last summer - to just three points.