George Balderson claimed four wickets as Lancashire dominated a rain-curtailed opening day of the County Championship Division Two match with Gloucestershire in Bristol.

After losing the toss, the home side had plunged to 124-6 off 44 overs by the time the weather brought play to a halt at 14:45 BST, with seamer Balderson producing figures of 4-27 from 16 overs, including a spell of 3-5 either side of lunch.

Ollie Price top-scored with 35 on another miserable day for the home side, who went into the match following innings defeats in their first two games.

Balderson’s contribution was all the more important given that Lancashire lost Ajeet Singh Dale to injury at the start of the sixth over against his former county.

He pulled up in delivery stride clutching the top of his left hamstring and will play no further part in the match, with Ollie Sutton summoned from a second XI fixture at Leicester to take his place under the new substitute rule.

With the skies gloomy and the floodlights on from the start, Lancashire skipper James Anderson won an important toss and sent down an accurate six-over spell when play commenced, conceding only seven runs and beating the bat on several occasions.

With the total on 22, Cameron Bancroft advanced down the pitch to Anderson and called for a quick single to cover, failing to beat Josh Bohannon’s direct hit when rightly sent back by Ben Charlesworth.

Lancashire suffered another injury problem with the score 43-1 as wicketkeeper Matty Hurst suffered a painful blow to his left hand when standing up to the stumps to Balderson.

Clearly in a lot of pain, he required several minutes of treatment before continuing in some discomfort.

Gloucestershire looked to be negotiating a testing morning well when Price and Charlesworth added 58 for the second wicket, but the final over before lunch saw Balderson squeeze a delivery through Price’s defence to knock back his leg stump and make it 80-2 at the interval.

It proved a turning point as Balderson struck twice more in quick succession after the break, pinning Charlesworth lbw for 26 with a delivery that appeared to keep low and having Miles Hammond caught behind trying to withdraw the bat.

Suddenly Gloucestershire were in trouble at 94-4 and their plight worsened when James Bracey became Balderson’s fourth victim, leg-before to a delivery that pitched on or around leg stump.

Graeme van Buuren then fell for a duck, edging a routine catch to Keaton Jennings at second slip off Paul Coughlin, and it was a relief to Gloucestershire when the forecast rain arrived, with 21-year-old Tommy Boorman, making his Championship debut, unbeaten on 11.

Report by ECB Reporters’ Network, supported by Rothesay.