Brown, Swann pilot Northants to division two lead

Northamptonshire has moved back to the top of Division Two of the County Championship after completing a resounding home victory over Worcestershire today with more than two sessions still remaining.

For the second week in a row, it was off spinners Jason Brown (5/55) and Graeme Swann (4/88) who proved the matchwinners. After taking seventeen wickets together in the last round, the tandem slow bowling combination added another sixteen to their rapidly swelling collective tally with another superb exhibition.

Worcestershire had entered the final day at a score of 102/6 in its second innings - and still facing a massive overall deficit of 168 runs. Matters soon became even worse as Brown tempted Steve Rhodes (4) into driving extravagantly at, but alas over the top of, a conventional off break. Stuart Lampitt (56*) and, to a lesser extent, Paul Pollard (9), summoned enough defiance to see out eighteen overs together before the latter's wicket fell but, from there, the end came quickly.

There was both good and bad news for the visitors in Lampitt's attainment of a well-deserved half century - for he gained appropriate reward for a positive innings and yet illustrated, in scoring it, the thorough inadequacy of his team's match totals of 249 and 198 on what was by no means an awkward pitch on which to bat.

Following this result, the rampant Northamptonshire now finds itself three points clear of Sussex at the head of the divisional standings. It seems likely that its fate will be determined in its two meetings with that particular rival over the course of the next fortnight - the first of which begins at Northampton on Wednesday.