Middlesex bowler Tim Murtagh was happy to pick up a five-wicket haul on the first day of their County Championship Division Two match at Leicestershire.

But the Irishman admitted the visitors were disappointed to see their rivals reach 353-8 on the back of an unbeaten 150 from Colin Ackerman.

Murtagh, who picked up 5-52 from 23 overs, said: “I’m happy on a personal basis I managed to find a good rhythm and pick up those wickets. I’ve been playing second-team cricket the last three weeks and that’s given me a bit of an advantage compared to some of the others, it kept me going in the longer format.

“We’re a bit disappointed they managed to get away from us in the final session, there were too many loose balls throughout the day. We’ll need to come back and knock the last two over quickly and get batting.

“It was a used wicket, the odd ball kept a bit low and we’ll probably see a bit more of that as the game goes on. We probably gifted them 50 runs in boundary balls, and if we’d knocked them over for 300 we’d have been pretty happy with that.”