LANCASHIRE were locked in a tight Championship contest at Leicester today after another disappointing performance by their batsmen.

They slumped to 199 all out, losing all 10 wickets for 154 yesterday after Mike Atherton and Mark Chilton's opening stand of 45.

But Peter Martin and Muttiah Muralitharan dragged Lancashire back into the game by taking two wickets each as Leicestershire struggled to 73 for four from 46 overs in their second innings.

Martin trapped Vince Wells and Ben Smith lbw, while Muralitharan bowled Darren Maddy and won yet another lbw verdict against Aftab Habib.

Earlier Devon Malcolm had done the damage for the second time this season following his Gold Award performance in Lancashire's Benson and Hedges Cup defeat at Grace Road.

He fired out Chilton, Atherton and John Crawley in his pacy opening burst and returned to add the wickets of Martin and Muralitharan for figures of five for 78.

Lancashire were saved from complete disaster by Neil Fairbrother, Joe Scuderi and Warren Hegg.

Fairbrother continued his impressive start to the season by hitting 45 in a fifth wicket stand of 55 with Scuderi, although he then gave his wicket away steering a catch to backward point.

Scuderi, whose selection ahead of Chris Schofield had come in for fierce criticism in one of the morning newspapers, went some way to proving his point with 30 - his third handy contribution of the year, following 48 in the first Championship game at Taunton and an unbeaten half century in Monday's Benson and Hedges Cup defeat by Notts at Trent Bridge.

But he also went to Wells's medium pace when Lancashire needed him to go on and make a big score, and in the end only Hegg's unbeaten 35, especially in a last wicket stand of 31 with Murali, allowed Lancashire to restrict Leicestershire's first innings lead to 41.

They were fighting tooth and nail on a muggy day at Grace Road today to give themselves a chance of a last innings run chase.