A pair of wickets on the brink of the new ball from Luke Procter prompted a flurry of activity on a slow day at The County Ground.
Brett Hutton and Ben Sanderson resumed their new ball partnership at the start of Day 3, with Leicestershire walking out six without loss. The new ball pair beat the bat consistently with both opening batsmen having to dig in to survive a testing first hour. It was an impressive spell from Hutton having recently come back from an ankle injury, the paceman unlucky not to take one or two wickets. Matt Coles thought he had the breakthrough in his first over, captain Rossington and his slip four-man cordon convinced Paul Horton had nicked through to the keeper, but the umpire was unmoved. Nathan Buck was thrown the balland struck early in his spell. Horton caught well at second slip by Hutton, the pressure build-up finally paying dividends for Northamptonshire. That was the only inroad in the morning session with the Leicestershire resistance plodding along at just over two runs an over.
Hutton continued his consistently good lines after the interval and had Neil Dexter caught on the crease and out lbw for 27, reducing the visitors to 107 for 2. Hassan Azad continued to fight hard but was eventually dismissed by Luke Procter for 92 off 212 balls, Coles with a sharp catch at square leg. One brought two with Procter picking up Colin Ackermann for 0 in his next over before the second new ball was taken on 80 overs. Ben Sanderson turned up the heat dismissing Dearden and then Cosgrove with a ball that came back in at the left hander, the visitors losing 4/13 and falling to 235 for 6. The all-action Coles took his first wicket of the match in the second over of his spell, seeing the back of Dieter Klein who had come out swinging for a short-lived 15.
With 15 overs still left in the day bad light forced play to a close with Leicestershire trailing by 26 going into Day 4 273 for 7.
Northamptonshire 299 (Wakely 65, Rossington 45)
Leicestershire 273/7 (Procter 2/37, Sanderson 2/54)