First day: Leicestershire are 342 for seven wickets against Worcestershire

Worcestershire were frustrated by a ton-up display by Leicestershire's John Maunders in the Frizzell County Championship Division Two match at sun-soaked New Road.

The 24-year-old left-hander scored 148 to lift his side to a position of dominance after a full day of 104 overs. The determined opening batsman made up for failing when Leicestershire beat Worcestershire by 12 runs at Grace Road in June.

On that occasion he scored 19 and three but yesterday he proved a far more difficult nut to crack before falling victim to West Indian offspinner Chris Gayle.

It was a major scalp for the Pears who face a challenging task in their bid to secure promotion.

Head coach Steve Rhodes said: "It would have been nice to have had them all out on the day I must admit. That's one of the goals we try to achieve.

"But I thought a couple of their batsmen hung in really well. Maunders played very well. He looks a good young player. He's gutsy and gets stuck in.

"He doesn't set the world alight but he certainly played a resilient knock. Sometimes you need that sort of player at the top of the order for other batsmen to play around him. He certainly fulfilled that role."

Worcestershire's day of energy-sapping toil began with them losing the toss for the eighth time in their last nine Championship matches.

They had an early success when Leicestershire's leading run-scorer Darren Robinson steered a Kabir Ali delivery to third slip where Ben Smith held a comfortable catch.

Robinson had scored 16, made up of four fours off 13 balls, to take him to 927 firstclass runs for the season.

Any hopes Worcestershire had of making further rapid inroads, however, were held up for 31 overs while Maunders put on 94 with Tom New.

It was a frustrating partnership for the Pears who made a hard-earned breakthrough shortly before lunch when New was bowled behind his legs for 31 by a turning Ray Price delivery.

H D Ackerman joined Maunders and by lunch Leicestershire had progressed to 115 for two with New Road spin twins Price and Gareth Batty having bowled 18 overs between them for a cost of only 28 runs.

Ackerman failed to last long after the interval, however, before he poked at a Kabir delivery while on 12 and was routinely caught at first slip by Gayle, who is making his home Championship debut for Worcestershire.

Gayle then held on to another slip catch off Kabir to account for Aftab Habib for nine.

The dismissals, however, failed to unsettle Maunders who was accompanied by Darren Maddy to his fourth Championship century. It came up when he chopped Price to third man for three.

It took the former Middlesex batsman four hours and contained 14 fours off 190 balls to easily eclipse his previous highest Championship tally this season of 67 against Somerset at Taunton in July.

Price kept plugging away and was rewarded just before tea when he bowled a sweeping Maddy behind his legs for 34 - 32 of them coming in boundaries.

He had put on 54 in 14 overs with Maunders who had moved on to 108 by the time Leicestershire went in at tea on 228 for five off 72 overs.

Maunders continued to hold centre stage and added 74 in 23 overs with Paul Nixon before playing forward to Gayle and being bowled after five and threequarter hours in the middle. He faced 281 balls and cracked 18 fours.

In the same over Gayle removed David Masters before Nixon and Claude Henderson prevented further losses.

Worcestershire had pace ace Shoaib Akhtar back after injury but he failed to make any impression, bowling ten overs for 37 runs.