Boeta Dippenaar said he felt Leicestershire had put in a "magnificent" performance over the last two days to save the game against Surrey.

The South African batter was at the heart of that with his maiden Leicestershire century, while HD Ackerman hit a brilliant 180 as the pair shared a stand of 314 for the third wicket.

"We were pretty much staring down the barrel," said Dippenaar.

"So to turn it round from where we were is magnificent. If we start doing that in the first innings, we will give ourselves a chance of winning Championship games.

"And, once we start scoring big runs up front, our bowlers will begin to find life a lot easier."

Dippenaar added that he felt his innings had not been the most fluent he has played but, with Ackerman stroking the ball around yesterday, that was not a major issue as the runs came at a healthy rate throughout the course of their monumental performance.

"I'm very pleased to have crossed that hurdle. I hope it is the first of many this season," said Dippenaar. "One thing I have done is knuckle down. Some times you need to battle through before you get more fluent.

"HD has got his game down to a tee in England. He felt very comfortable playing that positively. We complemented each other really well," he said.

Ackerman barely wasted a scoring opportunity yesterday as he made his first Championship century of the season. "In the context of the game we knew we needed to play well," said Ackerman.

"We didn't want to lose any wickets while we also wanted to try to extend our lead.

"I felt I was playing well and Dips had the opportunity to get in as I scored freely. It worked well and we saved the game sooner than we anticipated."