Handscomb hits Lord's century against former club

Peter Handscomb's first century at Lord's rescued Leicestershire from early trouble as their County Championship Division Two clash with Middlesex finally got under way on day two.

The Victorian never passed 50 at the ground in two seasons at the home of cricket, but the former Middlesex skipper haunted his former side here with a 188-ball 109 spanning 305 minutes.

Handscomb – dropped on 48 – shared stands of 64 with Rehan Ahmed, who made 42, and 82 with Tom Scriven, who hit 46, as the visitors reached 306 having earlier stumbled to 4-83.

Handscomb's century came after he was dismissed for 99 in Leicester's previous match with Northamptonshire, and has now passed fifty in four successive innings following earlier scores of 68 and 51 against Derbyshire and Sussex respectively. 

After an opening day lost entirely to rain in London it came as little surprise, despite bright overhead conditions, that Middlesex skipper Toby Roland-Jones opted to bowl first on winning the toss.

In only the fifth over Ethan Bamber – who finished with 4-68 – swung one into Rishi Patel which straightened off the pitch and crashed into his off stump before Marcus Harris was pinned lbw for 19.

Lewis Hill edged Ryan Higgins' third ball to slip and Louis Kimber lazily hooked Henry Brookes' fourth ball of the day down the throat of deep square to leave Leicestershire struggling.

Handscomb steadied the ship with Ahmed, who was dropped by Stephen Eskinazi at slip off Bamber, who eventually had him caught and bowled.

Three quick wickets saw Middlesex reduce the visitors to 8-208 but Handscomb and Scriven frustrated them to help their side get past 300.

Handscomb reached his landmark with the help of nine fours and added one more before being last out, giving Bamber a fourth victim.

Matt Renshaw tamed a seaming pitch for Somerset to lay the foundation for a three-wicket win over Essex inside two days at Taunton.

When Essex were bowled out for 138 in their second innings, 30 wickets had fallen in the Division One match, making a target of 167 to win look challenging for the home side.

However, Renshaw made 35 alongside Sean Dickson who put on 42 to put Somerset in control.

Renshaw set about the victory target positively, sharing an opening stand of 75 before the Queensland left-hander was out lbw.

Although Dickson followed the next over, Somerset always looked favourites from then on with the winning boundary coming off the final over of the day to give Somerset their first win of the season after four draws.

Wes Agar's four wickets and a career-best for Nathan Gilchrst helped Kent take complete control of their County Championship match with Lancashire in Manchester.

Lancs were made to follow on after being bowled out for 92 in just 30 overs as Gilchrist took 6-24 and Agar snared 4-35 to make the most of the cloudy conditions.

Kent had made a first innings score of 261 with Nathan Lyon taking 3-50, including bowling Agar.

The South Australia seamer struck the first breakthrough when he had Lancs opener Luke Wells edging to depart for 10 before four wickets went down for five runs in 10 balls.

After Josh Bohannon was bowled by Gilchrist, Agar had Lancs skipper Keaton Jennings nicking behind for four, and then trapped Tom Bruce lbw first ball.

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