The fact that Essex made 188 is down to John Stephenson. The 38 year old, who's only playing in his first match of the season because captain Ronnie Irani injured his knee in the warm-up, smashed a 71-ball 50 with five fours and three sixes, two of those being huge strikes off Dagnall and added a crucial 8th wicket stand of 97 with Jon Dakin, who hit 33 from 77 deliveries against his former club.

When the pair came together, Essex had slumped from a precarious 91-5 at lunch to 91-7 soon after and the all-rounder's inventions by taking the attack to the bowlers at least gave Essex some sort of 1st innings total and this after stand-in captain Paul Grayson won the toss and decided on first use.

With Ronnie injuring his knee in the warm-up, a big blow for us, it was Stepho and Nasser Hussain who took the places of Ronnie and James Middlebrook, with Essex deciding that no real spinner is needed on the Grace Road track and Stepho being the third seamer, with Ron out.

And you can see why James Middlebrook was dropped, with 13 wickets falling on the first day.

Darren Robinson fell early for four with the score on just 9 and when Nasser and Will Jefferson were edging the score up to the 50 mark, two quick wickets of these two went to leave Essex in early trouble.

Nass made just 6 in his first Championship appearance for nearly a year before edging the willy old Phil DeFretias to Darren Maddy at first slip. Will Jefferson is in fine form, but when on 32, DeFreitas trapped him in front and Essex were 44-3

This left Andy Flower and Aftab Habib to take over and they made a promising 4th wicket partnership of 33 before David Masters had Flower also lbw for 14 and just 10 runs later, Paul Grayson went the same way for 0 to leave Essex floundering on 87-5 and the captain short of form.

Aftab Habib, playing against his former county, looked his usual flowing self with a breezy 35 from 58 balls and went to lunch with James Foster on 0 at 91-5.

But disaster struck soon after, as Habib and Foster fell with no addition to the score and at 91-7 Essex's normal reliable batting was letting the team down.

Then came the intervention from Stephenson and Dakin that gave Essex a fighting chance, before the last three wickets fell on 188 to see Essex last only 62.3 overs.

DeFreitas took his third wicket of Dakin caught behind by Nixon and then Darren Maddy took the last two of Stepho and Scott Brant first ball, leaving Graham Napier stranded on 0 not out.

Essex needed early wickets and got two, Dakin bowling Maddy for 16 and Brant getting his fellow Aussie Brad Hodge lbw for 5, leaving the foxes on 39-2.

But Darren Stevens is an emerging talent and added 66 with Trevor Ward to give Leicestershire the edge.

John Stephenson (11-2-31-1) capped his fine day by getting Ward to edge to Foster for 44 late on, before Stevens (33 not out) and Paul Nixon (7 not out) took Leicestershire to 114-3 at the close, just 74 behind with still 7 wickets in the tank.

So, a poor day all round. Losing Ronnie in the warm-up started it and then the poor display with the willow, bar Stephenson. Still, the wicket looks like it's seaming a fair bit and with Leicester's batting a little weak, there's still hope of a slender first innings lead, or not trailing by too many. However, we must finish off the hosts if and when we get them 5 wickets down. Perhaps the weather will save us if we don't?! Well, Friday is set for rain, but the other two days are forecasted as fine, so let's hope the lads can turn it around.

John Stephenson - Fine half-century and a wicket and this, his first start of the season.

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Date: 30/4/03

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