Northamptonshire Vs. Lancashire LVCC day four.

Kerrigan haul seals vital win.

Simon Kerrigan took 7-63 to set-up
Lancashire's chase of 110.

Lancashire completed the double over their promotion rivals Northamptonshire today, cruising to an eight-wicket victory in the evening session at Wantage Road. Simon Kerrigan collected figures of 7-63, as the hosts were all out for 241 in their second innings and he was rightly treated to a standing ovation as he left the field.

With a target of just 110, the visitors knocked off the winning runs in the 31st over, with Andrea Agathangelou (57) and Luis Reece (40) seeing the new division two leaders over the line with an 88-run partnership.

With six wickets still needed at the start of the day there was plenty of work to be done and with no further wickets taken in the first hour of play it appeared as if the match was edging towards a draw. However, when James Middlebrook (75) played a needless sweep he forced a turning point to occur, as the hosts lost four wickets for just 12 runs.

Despite an ongoing injury, Andrew Hall (57) continued to resist Simon Kerrigan, who took four of the remaining six wickets. Hall battled his way to a valiant fifty from 127 balls, but his wicket ended the innings as Glen Chapple (3-38) took a superb diving catch off of his own bowling.  

Lancashire's chase began in the worst possible way, with Karl Brown edging to fist slip off Mohammad Azharullah for a first ball duck and Ashwell Prince was soon trapped LBW to Middlebrook for 12, attempting to paddle the ball to a vacant fine-leg.

 At 22-2 Lancashire were in danger of playing conservatively, but Reece continued to play confidently despite his tender age, in an innings that saw the 22-year-old hit 6 fours and achieve his highest score of his career thus far.

Agathangelou accelerated past his partner, also hitting 6 fours, but also three huge maximums, which helped him to race to fifty in 61 balls.  

Lancashire now sit one point ahead of Northants in the table, but with a game in hand they hope to extend this lead further in a bid to capture promotion in a comfortable manner.

Captain Glen Chapple commented on the pitch as being "very tough to play cricket on. We really had to work hard and we've beaten a good team".

"Kat is a word-class player and Kegs bowled brilliantly which really opened up the game for us".