Glos tumbling to eighth defeat

DAY 2 Close: Gloucestershire 159 & 78-5 need another 410 to beat Leicestershire 295 & 351-4dec. (PTS: Glos 3, Leics 5)
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The only mystery on day three at Grace Road was why Matthew Hoggard decided to bat as long as he did. Once Leicestershire passed 400 ahead they had far too many runs to make a Gloucestershire victory a possibility. This game should already be over.

It wasn't a mystery that Gloucestershire didn't apply themselves at the crease - Will Porterfield's chipped drive to mid-off being the main culprit; Chris Dent is excused: he received a peach of a yorker from Hoggard - nor was it a mystery that Leicestershire did, and made the visitors toil away laboriously in an afternoon session, after the first hour, of tedious cricket.

The only good thing to come out of the afternoon was Chris Dent's bowling. His left-arm spin was encouraging: he offered plenty of flight and bowled at a better pace than Ed Young and on a more consistent length. Dent can bowl more in first-class cricket.

From five-for-three many simply wanted the torture done and dusted but Hamish Marshall played the type of innings he's enjoyed several times recently. He played Claude Henderson particularly well: using his feet both back in the crease to cut and down the wicket to drive over the infield. But when he nicked Henderson behind, the runs completely dried up - Alex Gidman scored three after his dismissal - and the pressure mounted.

Chris Taylor offered a bat-pad chance in the final over of the day. He trudged off shoulders slumped as a symbolic figure of the way Gloucestershire's season is ending.

LIVE coverage continues tomorrow: www.gloscricketradio.co.uk