A hectic, unbeaten 76 from Ashwell Prince set up Lancashire for a dramatic 244-run win over Leicestershire in the English County Championship on Wednesday.
He had started the day on five, alongside Alviro Petersen, on 15, and the two South Africans needed to get the board moving to enable a declaration. Petersen fell soon after for 34, but Prince, having started slowly, upped the tempo in difficult conditions and was given good support by Alex Davies (54 off 57), sharing the highest partnership of the match, 107 at just under a run-a-ball.
Lancashire declared shortly after lunch, offering a target of 323, with Prince having struck eight fours off 106 balls.
What followed then was total chaos. Leicestershire put on 20 runs for the first wicket and then lost seven for nine runs in 47 balls. Just a token resistance by the tail enabled them to get to 78. Local lad Tom Bailey took 5-12 and Zimbabwean Kyle Jarvis grabbed 2-1o, to go with his 5-69 in the first innings. It was all over in 30 overs.
Prince is in top form this season, accumulating 541 runs from his eight innings and sitting as the top run-scorer across both Division One and Two, averaging more than 77 and striking at the rate of 62.11. Alex Hales leads Division One with 532.
Petersen is struggling, having scored just 259 runs from nine innings. His 115 in the first game of the season, against Derbyshire, must seem very far away.
Jacques Rudolph‘s Glamorgan look to be on course for their first win after four draws in the championship. They ran up 270 in their second innings, setting Essex a target of 364. They were 33-1 at the close, still 313 behind with a day to go.
Essex had earlier been bundled out for 221, in reply to Glamorgan’s 314, to which Rudolph contributed 81. He wasn’t so prolific second time around, dismissed for seven, but Colin Ingram added a useful 31 off 41 (6×4) as the home team forged ahead.
Another struggling Saffa batsman is Keaton Jennings, who scored four and three as Durham were forced to follow on and crashed to an eight-wicket defeat to Warwickshire at Edgbaston. They put up a better fight in the second innings, in which Michael Richardson, son of former Proteas keeper Dave (now the CEO of the ICC), scored 47, to add to his first effort of 33.
Compiled by Mark Salter
