DUBAI: England’s Richard Bland moved into a share of the lead at the Dubai Desert Classic on Saturday as Rory McIlroy headed to the driving range after an inconsistent round.

With heavy rain forcing a Monday finish Bland, who lost in a play-off last year, added a second straight five-under-par 67 to top the midway leaderboard with Belgium’s Thomas Pieters (67) and American amateur Michael Thorbjornsen (64).

Sweden’s Marcus Kinhult (65), Scotland’s Connor Syme (67) and Spain’s Adri Arnaus (68) were tied for fourth at nine-under par on a day when the sun was finally shining.

But the 60-odd millimetres of rain dumped over the past few days had made the conditions soft and the preferred lies rules were still in play, abetting the low scores.

World No. 1 McIlroy was not best pleased with his round of two-underpar 70.

He moved to eight-under par to be tied for seventh, but headed straight to the driving range to sort out an erring driver.

The round was helped by an eagle on the 13th hole, where he drained a putt from 34 feet. Otherwise, he just had one birdie and a bogey on an easy scoring day.

“Just a little rusty. Yeah, need to go do a little work,” he said.

“I think it’s nice when you’re not feeling on your game you have a short game to sort of bail you out, and I think that’s the reason why I’m still not too far away from the lead.”