Glamorgan well placed to win

Glamorgan have started well in their quest to score 309 to defeat Northamptonshire at Cardiff and attain their fourth consecutive championship victory.

The task had not appeared to be so easy when the visitors stood at 277-6 halfway through the afternoon, but Northamptonshire's last four wickets fell in 27 deliveries without addition to the score.

When the home county set out to score the highest total of the match to win Matthew Elliott and Steve James gave them a flying start by hitting 36 runs from the first six overs. Darren Cousins then had Elliott lbw causing Elliott and Mike Powell to be more cautious for a time (while still punishing the bad ball).

The Australian reached his second fifty of the match from 86 deliveries and included seven fours. He was given fine support by Powell with whom he took the total to 125-1 at the close. The Welshmen still needed 184 runs to win but Elliott (66 n.o.) and Powell (37 n.o.) were in good form. When Northamptonshire resumed in the morning on 110-2 Robert Croft took the first three wickets to go down and finished with 5-108 from 46 overs: it was his second five-wicket return of the summer but the first in the championship.

Mal Loye had not increased his overnight 42 when he snicked a ball from Croft in the day's first over and Elliott held the catch. After Jeff Cook was l.b.w David Sales batted responsibly towards his fifty but when he tried to drive Croft he skied the ball to be caught by Darren Thomas over his head.

With Graeme Swann's departure l.b.w the hosts seemed to have the upper hand only for TonyPenberthy and David Ripley to halt their progress. The latter, who was batting with a runner because of an ankle injury (leading to David Sales having to keep wicket for the first 13 overs of the Glamorgan innings), hit 33 of the 64 runs they put on in 28 overs. Ripley swept at Thomas and was caught by Adrian Dale coming in from the boundary, after which Northamptonshire collapsed dramatically.