County Championship: Tom Scriven haul helps Leics take control against Gloucs

Tom Scriven's career-best 4-30 took him to 21 Championship wickets for the season

Leicestershire's bid to add promotion to their first one-day final for 22 years started impressively as they returned to red-ball action.

Gloucestershire, bowled out for 125 here on Tuesday in the One-Day Cup semi-final, fared scarcely better five days later as they were dismissed for 159 despite Chris Dent's half-century.

Seamers Tom Scriven, with a career-best 4-30, and veteran Chris Wright (3-30) exploited a green pitch, with much of the damage done between lunch and tea as Gloucestershire collapsed from 77-1.

In reply, against an attack lacking three of its top four wicket-takers, the hosts closed on 103-2 as opener Rishi Patel (60 not out) closed in on 1,000 first-class runs in a season for the first time in his career.

Leicestershire, who probably need a victory here to stand a realistic chance of going up alongside runaway Division Two leaders Durham, had two players making their county debuts in wicketkeeper Ben Cox, who has joined initially on loan from Worcestershire, and Pakistan international batter Umar Amin, signed for the last four matches of the season in place of Peter Handscomb.

Having lost the toss and been put in, Gloucestershire had the better of the morning, going to lunch at 73-1.

The visitors benefited from the last two overs of Wiaan Mulder's opening spell as Ben Charlesworth picked up three fours from each, two through third man and another off an inside edge past off stump.

The wicket to fall was claimed by Scriven who conceded only three runs in seven overs and produced an excellent delivery that beat Charlesworth's inside edge and clipped the off bail.

Mulder - 0-35 from five overs first up - had a much more effective second spell, taking 2-7 from nine, with both wickets coming after a change of ball immediately after the interval.

The South African all-rounder bowled Ollie Price past a defensive bat and beat Miles Hammond, another of Gloucestershire's predominant left-handers, with a fullish ball into the front pad.

Those wickets set up Leicestershire for a much more productive afternoon. Chris Dent completed a 138-ball half-century with a nice shot through the covers off Scriven for his seventh boundary only to then fall leg before to the same bowler without addition.

Chris Wright, in his 200th first-class match, picked up his 577th wicket when James Bracey was bowled shouldering arms before Zafar Gohar became a first victim for Cox, giving Scriven his third success.

Josh Shaw was dropped at first slip on one off Matt Salisbury, but added only seven more before he became a debut lbw victim for Amin, leaving Gloucestershire 145-7 at tea.

Amin has played no international cricket for five years nor first-class cricket since November last year and has spent this summer playing for Cavaliers and Carrington in the Nottinghamshire Premier League - alongside Leicestershire all-rounder Rehan Ahmed and interim head coach Alfonso Thomas.

Six overs after tea, Gloucestershire were all out. Harry Tector, on Championship debut for the county, was leg before trying to work to leg off Wright, who then had Zaman Akhter caught at second slip off the shoulder of the bat.

Luke Charlesworth - younger brother of Ben - lasted five balls on his first-class debut, falling leg before pushing forward as Scriven claimed his fourth wicket.

It left Leicestershire to face 24 overs before the close. They quickly lost the recalled Sol Budinger, bowled through the gate by Shaw, before Hill edged Dom Goodman to gully for 21, but Patel, unfazed by surviving a chance to point on 46 off Akhter, went past fifty for the seventh time this season to take his first-class aggregate to 950.

Report supplied by ECB Reporters' Network.