Northants on the ropes after Lancs make good progress.

Northants were left lamenting the record-breaking partnership by Croft and Prince as they were made to follow on. 

Lancashire need just two more wickets heading into the final day of their Championship match with Northamptonshire to complete a much-needed victory after the visitors failed to recover from their first-innings collapse.

Northants fell to 231-8 in their second innings after following-on and still trail Lancashire by 239 runs after being bowled out for 180 in their first innings. Glen Chapple completed a five-wicket-haul and Tom Smith continued his good form with the ball, finishing with figures of 4-26 in Northants' first innings.

Andrew Hall (42*) and Muhammad Azharullah (28) added 41 for the final wicket, but their entertaining end to the innings was by no means enough to avoid the humiliation of having to bat again.

With a deficit of 470 runs remaining, the visitors were forced to follow on and made good progress with a 50 partnership for the first wicket between Stephen Peters (41) and James Middlebrook (20), but the loss of three wickets for 12 runs ended any fleeting hopes of making Lancashire bat again.

Smith and Kyle Hogg (1-35) inflicted early damage to remove the two Northants openers as well as Richard Levi, who had made 59 in the visitors first innings. Lancashire made further progress when Wayne White removed Rob Newton (21) before rain saved Northants from a three-day defeat.

In the final hour of play, Lancashire claimed another four wickets as they edged ever-closer to a mandatory win against relegation their relegation rivals. Matt Spriegel (29) was first to depart after he was trapped lbw by Simon Kerrigan (2-52) with the score at 133-5 and Ben Duckett (20) was removed by a smart catch from Steven Croft.

Hall was once again a steady pillar for the visitors and remains unbeaten overnight on 36, but the loss of David Willey (8) and Steven Crook (36) before close of play means that Northants are facing their seventh defeat of the season, four of which will have been by an innings.