Northamptonshire C.C.C - Rise To The Top

[DaveRobbo]

County Championship Division Two
Gloucestershire v Northamptonshire

We kick off the Championship season with a trip to Gloucestershire who finished second from bottom last season. Sam Hain will have to wait to make his debut because of fitness issues, but otherwise our first class team is looking in good shape and I'm optimistic for the season ahead.

Team: Lyth, Newton, Wakely, Levi, Kohler-Cadmore, Rossington (C+WK), Cobb, Arshad, Lyon, Muzarabani, Sanderson.

Gloucestershire won the toss and elected to bat.

It wasn't the start we were looking for though unfortunately. It's hard to pinpoint exactly what went wrong, probably a lot of starts that weren't made the most of when batting, and our quicks struggling in the first innings. We were defeated with 10 overs left of the game.

Not a disastrous performance but still a disappointing loss to start the season against opposition we should be beating.

Gloucestershire: 375 (Roderick 69, Dent 62 - Lyon 3-78, Sanderson 2-76)

Northamptonshire: 294 (Kohler-Cadmore 61, Newton 55 - Payne 5-56, Taylor 3-38)

Gloucestershire: 249 (van Buuren 109 - Muzarabani 4-105, Sanderson 3-62)

Northamptonshire: 256 (Wakely 53, Levi 48 - Sayers 3-48, Whittingham 3-49)

Gloucestershire win by 74 runs.

[DaveRobbo]

County Championship Division Two
Northamptonshire v Derbyshire

A big match already against another team that finished below us last season. Sam Hain has recovered and replaces Levi for his debut.

Team: Lyth, Newton, Wakely, Hain, Kohler-Cadmore, Rossington (C+WK), Cobb, Arshad, Lyon, Muzarabani, Sanderson.

Northamptonshire won the toss and elected to bat.

After a promising opening stand of 50 between Lyth and Newton, they both fell in quick succession and the early season issue of starting but not pushing on continued. Wakely, Hain and TKC all fell in the 20s, and we were 128-4. But then we got what we needed which was a monster partnership between Adam Rossington and star of last season Josh Cobb. It was worth 225 in which both men made centuries.

Derbyshire also made the most of the good batting conditions though, Reece making an impressive 141, and typically Leus du Plooy made 91 after we came so close to signing him in the off season. Once that partnership was broken though we didn't have much trouble with the rest of the order, Nathan Lyon and Muzarabani picking up 4 wickets apiece. We had a lead of 41 at lunch on day 3, and the plan was to have an aggressive rest of the day with the bat and declare overnight.

The rest of day 3 went perfectly to plan as we managed to get ourselves a lead of 337 to declare with. Kohler-Cadmore and Newton with half centuries, whilst there were valuable contributions from Lyth, Hain and Rossington.

The pitch was turning on the final day and after we had dismissed the Derbyshire opening pair of Godleman and Reece, the impressive Lyon and Cobb's part time off spin came into the game and took 6 between them to have the game wrapped up for us by tea despite du Plooy's resistance.

Northamptonshire: 424 (Rossington 149, Cobb 105 - Tongue 4-111, McKiernan 3-72)

Derbyshire: 383 (Reece 141, du Plooy 91 - Lyon 4-72, Muzarabani 4-94)

Northamptonshire: 296-7 dec (Kohler-Cadmore 87*, Newton 68 - Watt 2-64, Tongue 2-94)

Derbyshire: 150 (du Plooy 52 - Lyon 3-28, Cobb 3-32)

Northamptonshire win by 187 runs.

One day cup next