Grace Road: Leicestershire 419 and 141-3 Glamorgan 513-9 dec and 155-5 dec: match drawn. Glamorgan 12 points, Leicestershire 11 points.

CAPTAIN Mark Cosgrove’s unbeaten half-century saw Leicestershire to safety after Glamorgan skipper Jacques Rudolph set the Foxes a target of 306 to win off 50 overs.

Glamorgan’s hopes were high after Leicestershire opener Dan Redfern was dismissed without a run on the board, Graham Wagg having him caught at second slip by Dean Cosker, a fine low catch diving to his right.

Craig Meschede then induced first innings top scorer Ned Eckersley to edge an out-swinger, with Cosker taking a more straightforward offering, again at second slip, to leave the Foxes two down with just a single on the board.

The nerves of a large home crowd were jangling, but Cosgrove, playing with huge assurance against his former team on a pitch that played well throughout the match, went to his half-century off 106 balls.

Left-arm spinner Cosker did prise out Angus Robson, the opener leaving a ball that just clipped off-stump, but Neil Pinner impressed his new skipper with an unbeaten 42 before Cosgrove and Rudolph shook hands with a maximum of 12 overs remaining.

Cosgrove said he had learned a lot about his players in his first match in charge.

“Every time we got challenged we fought back, we came up with the goods, and I couldn’t have asked more from them,” he said.

“We’re going to be aggressive this year and take games on, but from none for two chasing 300 in 50 overs on a last day track we just had to bat some time, and we did that really well.

"If they’d set us 280 it would have been a reasonable chase, but that’s the way they played all game, a little bit negative.”

Glamorgan head coach Toby Radford said he was very pleased with his side’s performance.

"I think over the four days we played some excellent cricket, to get 500 in the first innings was great with two centurions in Jacques Rudolph and Will Bragg," he said.

“With three wickets down early we thought we had a real sniff and a good chance of winning the game, I'm a little bit disappointed we couldn't cross the line, but overall I'm pleased to take some points away."

"I think if we'd bowled better at the start of the first innings it might have been a different result. They were 200 for 1 and we bowled all day (Tuesday) and managed to restrict them to another 200 for 9, so if we'd done that the evening before we could have been in a really good position.”