Rothesay County Championship, Division One, Trent Bridge (day one)
Nottinghamshire 42-0: Hameed 32*
Leicestershire: Yet to bat
Notts 0 pts, Leics 0 pts
Nottinghamshire captain Haseeb Hameed passed 9,000 first-class career runs on a rain-disrupted first day against relegation-threatened Leicestershire.
The County Championship defending champions and Division One leaders made what they could of the 10.3 overs that were possible at Trent Bridge to reach 42-0.
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.
Play could not begin in earnest until almost six hours after the 10:30 BST 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 13:30 BST start only to be forced off again after a single over.
However, 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 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 past 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.
ECB Reporters’ Network, supported by Rothesay.
