HALF centuries from Paul Horton and Mark Cosgrove helped Leicestershire to a six-wicket victory on the penultimate day of their Specsavers' County Championship game against Gloucestershire at Cheltenham College.

Gloucestershire coach Richard Dawson blamed batting for the defeat saying: "We were behind on first innings and that was the difference. We talked about the importance of not being in that position, but once we were it was always going to be difficult to control the game.

"I think the bottom line is that we didn’t bat well enough and we paid the price for that.

"Leicestershire are a good side and have a very good bowling attack, but we didn’t apply ourselves well enough.

"They put us under pressure today and when we lost two wickets in one over, we were always going to struggle."

Set 181 to win, the Foxes recovered from 16 for 2, shortly after lunch, to seal victory with more than three sessions of the game to spare. Cosgrove hit an impressive 54 and Horton, an unbeaten 73.

However, it was far from plain sailing on a Festival wicket that once again provided plenty of encouragement for the bowlers.

Gloucestershire, resuming their second innings on their overnight total of 133 for 4, found themselves in a genuine spot of trouble during the first session, against the Leicestershire trio of Ben Raine, Clint Mckay and Charlie Shreck.

Although Michael Klinger reached 50 off 101 balls, with seven fours, he became the fifth Gloucestershire wicket to fall when caught behind off the bowling of Raine for 54 at 155 for 5.

Jack Taylor, with whom Klinger added 55 for the fifth wicket, departed off the final ball of the same Raine over and when Craig Miles and David Payne followed, in quick succession, Gloucestershire were 161 for 8.

Liam Norwell was bowled by McKay for 3, six runs later, before Benny Howell (20 not out) and Shaw, who hit a career best 29, gave Gloucestershire fresh hope with 48 for the final wicket.

Leicestershire, chasing a modest 181 for victory, but mindful that Gloucestershire had bowled out leaders Essex for 151 on the final day of last week's Championship game at the picturesque college ground, lost Angus Robson before lunch and Neil Dexter shortly after.

However, Cosgrove and Horton not only batted with great patience, to add 108 off 184 balls for the third wicket, but in doing so, took the visitors to within sight of a third Championship victory of the summer.

Cosgrove, who reached his half century off 88 balls, with seven fours, eventually chipped a catch to Will Tavare at mid wicket, off the bowling of Graeme van Buuren, at 124 for 3.

Still, Horton posted 50 off 113 balls and continued in the same sensible vain as Gloucestershire toiled in the late afternoon sunshine.

There were, of course, one or two close shaves along the way, before the slow left-armer van Buuren finally snared his man, lbw for 73, at 163 for 4.

Unfortunately, for Gloucestershire, it was too little too late and Mark Pettini and Niall O'Brien finally put Gloucestershire out of their misery, with more than 15 overs of the day remaining.