Balderson, Jennings to the fore as Lancashire sign off with victory

Lancashire wrapped up their 2025 Rothesay County Championship campaign with a three-day win over Glamorgan thanks to a one-day style evening session.

Stand-in captain Josh Bohannon oversaw his side's first County Championship win at Sophia Gardens since 1981 against Glamorgan, whose promotion was confirmed last week. It was also Glamorgan's first red-ball defeat since April, in departing captain Sam Northeast's last appearance.

After controlling the game from day one, Lancashire took eight wickets, including 4 for 75 for George Balderson before Keaton Jennings' top-order blaze of 47 from 33 balls set the visitors on their way to chasing 133 inside 26 overs remaining in the day.

The north-west county provisionally rise to third in an unsuccessful attempt to gain promotion from their first season back in Division Two while Glamorgan will play in Division One for the first time since 2005 next year.

Resuming with the intention and requirement to bat all day, Northeast and Zain-ul-Hassan kept Lancashire's bowlers at bay for a 58-run partnership before the former's dubious lbw for 21 in his last Glamorgan innings, and Zain's reckless reverse sweep on 45 chalked the hard work off.

Balderson's impressive stint of 25 overs all told gave a feel of him nagging at Glamorgan batters for the whole innings. On a varying pitch, his skiddy medium-pace with Matty Hurst stood up to the stumps for the majority saw Billy Root and later Mason Crane pinned, the latter putting up a good fight with half-centurion Chris Cooke before being undone by the new ball straight after tea.

Despite single-figure scores prominent, every other wicket seemingly kept day four in contention for Glamorgan - Colin Ingram and Cooke held things together before the wicketkeeper's hard-fought 50 came up with a counter-attacking six while in the company of No. 11 Ned Leonard.

Lancashire made no changes to batting order, seemingly happy to see through day three on a pitch that provided plenty of turn for Tom Hartley - promising signs for Crane - as well as bounce variety for seamers. The assumption was wrong. Luke Wells together with Jennings in white-ball mode belted the new-ball around to take all the pressure off.

Twenty from James Harris' fourth over left wickets of no concern before Bohannon, George Bell and Hurst continued the momentum despite two consolation wickets for Crane.

With five to win, Northeast stepped up to bowl as the final act of his four-year captaincy stint.