Stoke City defender Ben Wilmot grabbed an unlikely double, including an 89th-minute equaliser, to deny Gary Rowett a fine comeback victory in his first game as Leicester City boss.

The Potters captain, who opened the scoring with a powerful header from Aaron Cresswell's fine cross inside three minutes, poked home his second at the far post to salvage a point.

Leicester, who would have climbed out of the Championship relegation zone with a win, were fortunate to only be trailing by one goal at the break, but were vastly improved on the resumption.

On-loan Manchester City midfielder Divine Mukasa's curling effort made it 1-1 and Harry Winks put the visitors ahead with a fine low strike after some neat interplay.

Wilmot's late leveller ruined Rowett's afternoon but the Foxes still should have taken all the points in six minutes of injury time where they piled forward and hit the frame of the goal twice.

Ben Nelson's looping header came back off the bar and, in the final action of a gripping second half, Luke Thomas somehow hit the foot of the post with a point-blank header.

A positive Leicester result never looked on the cards after a one-sided first half which saw them fall behind within 150 seconds of Rowett taking his seat in the dugout when some inconclusive defending at a corner ended with the ball being recycled and Wilmot heading the ball down and in.

Stoke's physicality and set-piece threat, combined with their ability to create overlaps out wide saw them control things before the break.

Wilmot headed just over soon after his goal, Leicester keeper Asmir Begovic made a stunning save to keep out Cresswell's deflected strike and and Milan Smit had a goalbound strike blocked.

But the Foxes, inspired by 18-year-old Mukasa, were by far the better side in the second half.

Mukasa's attempted cross from the right crept in at the far post to level matters. And he followed his second goal in three league games by grabbing his second assist for the Foxes, playing a key role in teeing up Winks to fire the ball home from 18 yards.

Wilmot's calm finish made it 2-2 and, despite all the late drama, Leicester were unable to end a four-game losing run with a win, while Stoke are now winless in seven.

Stoke City boss Mark Robins told BBC Radio Stoke:

"It [the failure to win] is just poor execution and poor decision-making. And mistakes.

"We can be critical. I'm certainly critical. But on the other hand, we've got a group of players that have been put together now waiting for people to come back to give us that extra bit of quality, bit of depth and that ability to go and make changes to improve things.

"Hopefully we can get the injured lads back really quickly because we need them.

"Leicester have got better individuals than us, at present, and I thought we'd done brilliantly well to make it as difficult as possible.

"But Gary's team in the second half played like one of Gary's teams. They tried to put us on the back foot and we allowed that to happen, and that was the frustration. There was a lack of energy in the second half."

Leicester boss Gary Rowett told BBC Radio Leicester:

"The players are devastated because they want to win games of footbal.

"It's very easy to judge and label players, but sometimes you have to just see what they're about.

"At the moment, they've been really receptive to the ideas. They want to get out of the position they are in. They all recognise that it's not acceptable to be in a position we're in with the quality that we've got.

"But it's about doing it on the pitch. We can talk about it till we're blue in the face, but it's about showing it. And, in the second half, they did.

"We've got some really, really good players. But we need to do is find a really nice defensive base so that those players in the forward areas haven't got to score two, three, four goals every game to go and win it. We certainly have to be a little bit more solid."