Boyce is star man as Yorkshire let Leicestershire off the hook (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Boyce is star man as Yorkshire let Leicestershire off the hook

7:41pm Friday 27th July 2012 in Sport By Graham Hardcastle

Leicestershire’s Matt Boyce likes batting against Yorkshire.

The Foxes number five, a pugnacious left-hander, backed up his century at Scarborough in May with an unbeaten 106 during today’s opening day of this LV= County Championship match at Grace Road.

Yorkshire will be mightily frustrated at not grabbing the contest by the scruff of the neck having had their hosts at 98-4 at lunch, only to see them close at 318-9.

Mind you, batting conditions are so good that they will still be extremely confident of getting themselves into a match-winning position.

After Andrew Gale had lost the toss, the bowling performances of the two Steves, Patterson and Harmison, were like chalk and cheese.

Patterson was on the money virtually all day, returning 3-54 from 24 overs and having Boyce dropped twice on 26 and 94 by Adam Lyth at second slip and Jonny Bairstow behind the wicket.

But Harmison cut a sad figure as he sprayed balls wide to the off-side and wide down leg, conceding 19 runs in either wides or no balls in figures of 2-69 from 16.

One of his wickets was a perfect yorker to get rid of Ramnaresh Sarwan during the morning, and he later had Paul Dixey caught at square-leg as the batsman chased a wide one down leg.

Boyce shared three stands between 50 and 68 with Shiv Thakor, Wayne White and Claude Henderson to underpin the recovery after lunch.

Moin Ashraf struck twice for Yorkshire and Anthony McGrath and Azeem Rafiq once apiece.

There was mixed news for Yorkshire regarding the availability of England players today.

While Tim Bresnan has been made available for t20 Finals Day on August 25, Joe Root and Bairstow have both been called up by England Lions, meaning they will miss the Championship match against Derbyshire, starting on August 15.