Northamptonshire C.C.C - Rise To The Top

[DaveRobbo]

One Day Cup Group Stage
Derbyshire v Northamptonshire

I kept the faith in the same eleven from the Durham defeat, hoping they would prove me right here and bounce back to get 2 points on the board.

Team: Curran, Newton, Wakely (C), Levi, Rossington (W/K), Cobb, Bavuma, Sole, Arshad, White, Sanderson.

Derbyshire won the toss and elected to bat.

So the first lost toss of the season. I would have batted, but maybe it's a blessing in disguise and we're actually better at chasing after all. The bowlers put in a much stronger performance this time though, Sanderson again the pick removing the Derbyshire openers early. We had them in all sorts of trouble at 65-5, but a century from Daryn Smit got them to what I would say was a slightly under par score of 271.

We managed to chase the total down although it got extremely hairy towards the end, the loss of Adam Rossington triggered a collapse from 239-5 and cruising to 244-8 and all at sea. I fully expected to crash to defeat at this point but the tail wagged and Tom Sole and Jack White (almost certain it's not the guy from the White Stripes) put together a surprising 30 partnership to see us over the line with 8 balls of the game remaining.

Derbyshire: 271 (Smit 129, McKiernan 42 - White 3-38, Sanderson 3-58)

Northamptonshire: 274-8 (Newton 67, Rossington 54 - Watt 2-56, Palladino 2-57)

Northamptonshire win by 2 wickets.

[DaveRobbo]

I have noticed those question marks appear when I attempt to input incompatible emojis on the forum, meaning ones that come from your device. The only emojis you can select from and successfully use on this forum are the ones at the bottom of the section where you type your post.

That aside, the first year white ball season has begun. It is always very tough going unfortunately. Fielding five bowlers that take wickets and do not get walloped is a challenge!

That was my first thought, but in the Glamorgan match report for example I didn't use any emojis at all and they still appeared.

Yeah white ball stuff is always tricky first season - I don't hold out any hopes of qualification to be honest, give it a go though!

[MateGaming]

Started well so far! Always had a soft spot for Northants since they started to do well in the T20s before losing the likes of Willey. Enjoying this, keep it up!

[DaveRobbo]

One Day Cup Group Stage
Northamptonshire v Warwickshire

Good performance last time out, no need to change anything. Same team for the third one day game running.

Team: Curran, Newton, Wakely (C), Levi, Rossington (W/K), Cobb, Bavuma, Sole, Arshad, White, Sanderson.

Northamptonshire won the toss and elected to bat.
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I was hoping to lose the toss to be perfectly honest after the last game, didn't know what I wanted to do so wasn't amused to see the call of tails come up trumps. Chose to bat because I just prefer it, and I'm stubborn even though we successfully chased last time out

A solid opening stand of 49 between Curran and Newton got us off to a good start, but again the loss of one wicket brought two more, and all of a sudden a healthy position turned into 55-3. Wickets kept falling at one end but at the other Adam Rossington but together an outstanding innings, he glued the innings together and reached 3 figures to haul us up to 270. Roughly what we chased against Derbyshire but I wasn't hopeful of defending this.

The bowling "performance" though was extremely disappointing. We were never in this game at all from the moment the first ball of the innings was bowled. Sam Hain batted all the way through for an unbeaten 136, Warwickshire got over the line losing only 3 wickets without breaking a sweat. Not good!

Northamptonshire: 270 (Rossington 118, Newton 46 - Patel 4-61, Norwell 3-39)

Warwickshire: 271-3 - 39 overs (Hain 165*, Pollock 60)

Warwickshire win by 7 wickets.

One win and two defeats from the opening 3 games, Lancashire await us next in the group.

[DaveRobbo]

Started well so far! Always had a soft spot for Northants since they started to do well in the T20s before losing the likes of Willey. Enjoying this, keep it up!

I was living 5 minutes from their ground when they first won the T20 (2013?) so went to a lot of their games that season. Glad you're enjoying it!

[Sureshot]

I have noticed those question marks appear when I attempt to input incompatible emojis on the forum, meaning ones that come from your device. The only emojis you can select from and successfully use on this forum are the ones at the bottom of the section where you type your post.

I've just followed this up with Shaun (our web admin), this is correct, it's caused by copy and pasting from non UTF-8 sources. So will be fine if using our own emojis rather than device ones.

[DaveRobbo]

I've just followed this up with Shaun (our web admin), this is correct, it's caused by copy and pasting from non UTF-8 sources. So will be fine if using our own emojis rather than device ones.

Ok thanks, there's one "odd one out" though - the Glamorgan match halfway down the first page. There aren't any emojis there and I'm almost certain I didn't include any any remove them.

[DaveRobbo]

One Day Cup Group Stage
Lancashire v Northamptonshire

Got through another few one day games so here they are...

Needless to say there were changes after the Warwickshire game, one was enforced with a knock to Cobb, he was replaced by young batsman Charlie Thurston but I wanted more bowling options so in came Stefan Zaib and Luke Procter who can also contribute with the bat. Sole also made way for an extra paceman in Brett Hutton.

Team: Curran, Newton, Wakely (C), Levi, Rossington (W/K), Thurston, Procter, Zaib, White, Hutton, Sanderson.

Northamptonshire won the toss and elected to bat.

There was no way I was bowling first after 2/3 very poor showings with the ball, unfortunately this time it was the batters that put in a very abject performance. We tumbled to 33-4 and it was down to Rossington again and Procter to somewhat salvage the situation. 94 runs between them, not much from elsewhere and we were dismissed for 174.

This meant Lancashire could bide their time, we didn't really get a look in as they chased the modest total down with ease.

Northamptonshire: 174 (Rossington 55, Procter 39 - Mahmood 3-33, Gleeson 2-34)

Lancashire: 175-2 (Davies 65*, Croft 47)

Lancashire win by 8 wickets.

[DaveRobbo]

One Day Cup Group Stage
Northamptonshire v Worcestershire

A complete re-shuffle of the top order after the circus at Old Trafford - Josh Cobb our best batsman comfortably at the moment is partial to opening in white ball cricket so he partners Vasconcelos in a new look opening partnership. Bavuma returns, so Rossington goes back to his favoured position of 6.

Team: Cobb, Vasconcelos, Wakely (C), Levi, Bavuma, Rossington, Arshad, Procter, White, Hutton, Sanderson.

Worcestershire won the toss and elected to bowl.

Five words to describe this one: "Where did that come from!" After losing Vasconcelos early Cobb and Wakely put together a 120 partnership in no time at all, really setting a good platform for the big hitters to come in later. Cobb continued his outstanding start to the season with another century, and Levi, Rossington and Arshad supplied a few lusty blows towards the end of the innings as we reached a fantastic score of 338! Not bad considering we were 1-1 after 2 overs and the here we go again feeling was lurking.

We even bowled well, Sanderson taking a 5 wicket haul and Cobb's part time spin doing the damage, and Worcestershire were always behind the run rate, we bowled them out with 3 and a half overs to spare but they were never getting there.

Have to build on this now.

Northamptonshire: 338-9 (Cobb 103, Wakely 63 - D'Oliviera 3-72, Barnard 2-45)

Worcestershire: 273 (Barnard 68*, Fell 65 - Sanderson 5-47, Cobb 3-53)

Northamptonshire win by 65 runs.

[DaveRobbo]

One Day Cup Group Stage
Northamptonshire v Yorkshire

Two changes from the miraculous Worcestershire game - Vasconcelos didn't survive his duck and was replaced by Newton again, whilst the conditions suggested that there could be some joy for spinners so I took a punt and brought in young leggie Jamie Dickinson for his debut.

Team: Cobb, Newton, Wakely (C), Levi, Bavuma, Rossington (W/K), Arshad, Procter, Dickinson, Hutton, Sanderson.

Northamptonshire won the toss and elected to bat.

I didn't have much choice after the last game, the key question was whether we could repeat it but sadly we reverted to our old ways and proved the 338 was a flash in the pan. Another sensational top order collapse, this time to 47-5 set the tone. To be honest this was a carbon copy of the Lancashire game and it was incredibly annoying. The only batsman who came out of this innings with any credit was Rob Newton who batted through and was the last man out 11 short of 3 figures.

We had some early success with the ball, but Yorkshire were never in any danger and chased our target down comfortably with 8 overs to spare.

Northamptonshire: 179 (Newton 89 - Olivier 5-57)

Yorkshire: 181-5 - 41.5 overs (Leaning 63, Fraine 54* - Sanderson 3-49, Hutton 2-29)

Yorkshire win by 5 wickets.

2 wins and 4 defeats with a couple of games remaining - can't qualify now unless a minor miracle occurs.

[GrahamB]

Tough going in those OD games!
Cobb can be a beast.

[DaveRobbo]

One Day Cup Group Stage
Leicestershire v Northamptonshire

We brought Ben Curran back to open up alongside Newton and Cobb went back to his first class position. Dickinson didn't have much success last time out but I kept him in for another go, might as well experiment since we can't qualify. Nathan Buck also comes in to have a bowl.

Team: Curran, Newton, Wakely (C), Bavuma, Rossington (W/K), Cobb, Arshad, Procter, Dickinson, Buck, Sanderson.

Leicestershire won the toss and elected to bowl.

I mean, why wouldn't you want to bowl at us?

We continued to be inconsistent though as a much improved batting performance was on display this time. Not as spectacular as a couple of games ago, but Rob Newton shone again and Bavuma made his first significant contribution in this competition. There were contributions from everyone here, much more encouraging performance as we went past 280 and set out hosts a challenging target.

Leicestershire started like a house on fire and were 40 without loss after just 5 overs, but Buck came into the attack and snaffled a couple of quick wickets to stop them in their tracks. They rebuilt at a slow pace, and reached 144-3 after 33 overs and realising they needed to get a move on performed a Northants-like collapse and lost their last 7 wickets for less than 60 runs.

Victory, but it was confirmed after this game that we couldn't qualify. Oh well.

Northamptonshire: 282-9 (Newton 61, Bavuma 61 - Lilley 3-52, Parkinson 3-69)

Leicestershire: 199 (Evans 57 - Buck 4-37, Procter 2-59)

Northamptonshire win by 83 runs.

[DaveRobbo]

One Day Cup Group Stage
Northamptonshire v Nottinghamshire

A few changes to rest key players with big Championship matches approaching. Just wanted to get this one out of the way to be honest, I enjoyed the campaign but it's nice to get them out of the way especially when they didn't go well.

Team: Curran, Newton, Wakely (C), Thurston, Rossington (W/K), Bavuma, Arshad, Procter, Dickinson, Cotton, White.

Northamptonshire won the toss and elected to bat.

The last 50 over game was an exciting one, we made a solid score in difficult conditions which Notts struggled at times to chase down. It went to the final over but they eventually scrambled over the line thanks to a century from Tom Moores. Again we had contributions from 1-11, no-one disgraced themselves here against a very strong team.

Northamptonshire: 277-9 (Bavuma 60*, Rossington 57 - Mullaney 3-45, Chappell 2-53)

Nottinghamshire: 278-6 - 49.3 overs (Moores 117, Hales 65 - Arshad 2-46, Cotton 2-58)

Nottinghamshire win by 4 wickets.

That's the end of the 50 over competition for this season, back to focusing on the County Championship now.
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[DaveRobbo]

Tough going in those OD games!
Cobb can be a beast.

Pleased to get them over with now!
He's been outstanding so far.

[DaveRobbo]

County Championship Division Two
Lancashire v Northamptonshire

So the one day games are over for the season and unfortunately we didn't manage to progress to the knockout phase. A block of first class games to come now though in which we're looking to pick up where we left off against Glamorgan

Team: Curran, Newton, Wakely (C), Bavuma, Thurston, Rossington (W/K), Cobb, Procter, Zaib, Muzarabani, Sanderson.

Northamptonshire won the toss and elected to bat.

I strongly considered taking up the option of bowling first looking at the conditions, it wasn't obvious enough though so I batted. The loss of two early wickets made me regret the choice slightly, but a first century of the season for our overseas star Temba Bevuma, alongside another noticeable contribution from Cobb hauled us up to 300 which I was pleased with after the start we made.

Cobb also starred with the ball; his part time off spin alongside Stefan Zaib's left arm spin combined for 8 Lancashire wickets as they crumbled following a good start. Good to see the spinners in the wickets as that was a definite area of concern at the start of the season. We didn't bat anywhere near as well in the second innings though, being dismissed for 195 as we set Lancashire a difficult target of 327 although with a session + another full day to get it.

At lunch on the final day all 3 results were still possible, they were 148-4 with Hameed and Vilas involved in a frustrating partnership. Another session passed but this one went in our favour; tea arrived with Lancashire 270-8 still requiring 57 for victory with just 2 wickets remaining. This turned to 292-9, and with us all set to secure victory however their last wicket partnership had other ideas. One of the most frustrating sessions I've played saw Lancashire achieve an unbroken 10th wicket stand of 35, featuring a dropped slip catch and multiple edges landing safe, to secure an unlikely victory for them. A gut-wrenching way to lose a game we never should have lost in a million years.

Northamptonshire: 300 (Bavuma 128, Cobb 85 - Bailey 5-86, Anderson 2-59)

Lancashire: 169 (Maxwell 64, Jennings 33 - Cobb 4-26, Zaib 4-43)

Northamptonshire: 195 (Rossington 65, Bavuma 33 - Parkinson 3-45, Bailey 3-73)

Lancashire: 327-9 (Hameed 64, Vilas 56 - Zaib 3-59, Procter 2-59)

Lancashire win by 1 wicket (somehow!)