IT was a frustrating afternoon in the end for Worcestershire as Leicestershire's Hassan Azad prevented an opening game win for The Pears in the LV=Insurance County Championship.

Having been in a dominant position after three days, Worcestershire had their hosts at 80-5 at lunch on day four and they only needed one wicket in the final half hour of play but a century from Azad proved an obstacle too difficult to budge.

"We tried everything," said head coach Alex Gidman.

"We tried bouncers, we tried spin, around the wicket, over the wicket, we tried pretty much everything so I can’t fault the efforts.

"But massive credit to Hassan Azad. That was a very special innings, to bat for 300 odd balls on day four trying to save the game was very special for him."

Gidman was impressed with what he saw but could not hide the disappointment at not being able to pick up the win.

However, he saw encouraging things from his group of players.

"Disappointed for the players," he added.

"They put in so much effort over four days. We played some fantastic cricket; really pleased with everything other than gutted for them we didn’t quite get over the line but amazingly proud of the players to get ourselves into that position.

"Just a shame we didn’t quite get over the line.

"I thought we played some outstanding cricket. To get ourselves out of a little hole at 40 odd for four….some wonderful batting in the first innings and then some great team bowling to take those first ten wickets.

"I thought last night’s batting was very entertaining and great to watch and we had to do something special to get ourselves into a position to win the game.

"I thought it was a fantastic cricket wicket but completely understandably, it got slower and harder to take wickets on."