Leicestershire were promoted as Division Two champions in 2025, ending a 22-year exile from the top flight. They are in danger of going straight down after five defeats and no wins in their first seven fixtures yet will feel they have a chance of avoiding that fate if they can start the last seven on a winning note.
Rain sent the players off for 45 minutes during the opening session but it did nothing to help the Yorkshire cause as Rehan and Kelly maintained the grip they had started to build on the first evening, the fourth-wicket pair extending a partnership worth 52 overnight to 128 by lunch.
Rehan regularly found the boundaries on both sides of the wicket, completing the seventh hundred of his career with his 15th four. It had come off 128 balls, with quiet passages rare and brief. Kelly, strong on the drive, went to fifty soon after lunch.
With nothing much on offer in the pitch, it was hard to see where a breakthrough was coming from. In the end, it was self-inflicted. Rehan looked to clear the infield off Matthew Revis but the shot lacked control and Sam Whiteman took a comfortable catch at cover.
Nonetheless, there were moments of high quality in Rehan’s innings – his first hundred against Division One opponents. It will keep him in England’s thoughts ahead of the next Test.
The second new ball brought more success as Hassan Ali straightened one enough to beat Ben Cox’s defensive push. Leicestershire were 329-5, leading by 144.
Yet Kelly’s progress continued, the left-hander rushing to his own hundred in a flurry of boundaries, including three in the same Hassan over. The middle one edged between wicketkeeper and slip but the next was clipped nicely into the leg side for his 15th four, bringing up his first hundred in English county cricket.
He launched Jack White over the off side boundary for his second six as he and new man Joey Evison added 74 to take the Leicestershire total beyond 400 before Kelly departed, undone leg before by a ball from off-spinner Dom Bess that went with the arm.
Evison’s departure for a useful 55 after a communication breakdown with Ben Green sparked a late collapse as Leicestershire’s last four wickets fell for five runs, two each to spinners Bess and Moriarty, an anticlimax compounded by missing out on maximum bonus points after just six runs were needed in the 110th over.
Those frustrations were quickly forgotten, though, as Davey struck twice in his fourth over to remove Luxton and Lyth via fine catches at third slip and leg slip respectively.
Report by ECB Reporters’ Network, supported by Rothesay.
