Date-stamped : 28 Aug95 - 22:29 CC: Northamptonshire v Nottinghamshire, Northampton, 24-28 August 1995 ====> Day 1, 24 Aug 95 Northants hopes nailed by Notts - Simon Hughes First day of four: Notts (353-1) v Northants EVEN in a summer of extreme weather, you can always guarantee a dour Midlands struggle for supremacy, and Tim Robinson and Graeme Archer were in a we-shall-not-be-moved sort of mood. As the day wore on, the Notts second wicket pair grew more dar- ing, easing seven Northants bowlers off a splodgy green square across a camel-coloured outfield. Robinson, fatally missed at second slip on three, batted all day for an assured 204 not out, his seventh hundred of the season, and certainly was not seeing the ball too badly when he accepted an offer of bad light at 6.10pm. Since they shared a high-scoring draw with this opposition in July last year, Northants have won 16 championship games out of 21, but the momentum towards their first championship title might have ground to a halt. Most of the bowlers are carrying injuries, and they have another nine days on the trot to get through - in- cluding the Nat West final. They might have hoped for an easier obstacle yesterday than Robinson`s bat, which was rarely passed, even by the demon leg- spinner Anil Kumble. Cleverly keeping his pad out of the way as the Indian`s deliveries veered in towards leg stump, Robinson gave the bat-pad fieldsmen nothing to prey on, and so frustrated the bowler that he eventually wandered off for treatment to a bad ankle. Well he has sent down more than 800 overs since May, poor chap. Kumble was introduced in the 23rd over, and with his sixth ball snared Paul Pollard with the googly. "Why didn`t they just give him the new ball and put him on at the start," the members said, but Robinson ensured Archer was not exposed to these unfamiliar wiles until he was beginning to punch the seamers through the legside. There is a languid quality to Robinson`s batting which bowlers find ennervating. He does not move his feet much, often looks an lbw candidate, but dispatches anything erring in line or length with unfussy efficiency and possesses an exquisite cover drive. If the Northampton players see much more of it today, they will be out of the game and probably the title race. Source :: The Electronic Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk) Contributed by The Management (help@cricinfo.com) ====> Day 2, 25 Aug 95 Northants humbled by loss of form - Simon Hughes Second day of four: Northants (149-0) trail Notts (527) by 378 runs THE ingredients for a team to win the county championship include large measures of stamina, luck and good fielding. Unfortunately for Northants, supplies of these commodities have dried up over the last two days. All the bowlers looked disheartened apart from Paul Taylor, and their mood was only darkened by a series of missed chances. Tim Robinson was dropped on three and Graeme Archer on 75, errors that eventually cost Northants 289 runs, and several other lapses allowed the Notts tail to prolong their innings until tea on the second day. This did not look very likely when they lost three quick wickets in the morning, including an extraordinary pirouette and double pike by Allan Lamb to pull off a one-handed catch in the gully and send back Chris Cairns, the season`s leading all-rounder, without scoring. But Archer soldiered on -for more than seven hours in all - un- leashing thumping cuts from a stance which suggests he is about to overbalance. On a thoroughly reliable pitch Anil Kumble failed to find any purchase and was effectively repelled, though he still chipped in with four wickets to take his season`s tally to 86. Kumble has been an inspired signing but Northants earned only one bowling point for all their effort yesterday and despite their openers` fluent progress, could do with a David Copperfield or a Paul Daniels to conjure something out of this one. Source :: The Electronic Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk) Contributed by The Management (help@cricinfo.com) ====> Day 3, 26 Aug 95 Rich pickings as Northants feast on runs - Simon Hughes Third day of four: Notts (527) trail Northants (709-7d) by 182 runs THERE are seldom many spectators at Northampton, but the public announcer always makes a habit of indicating the culinary delights around the ground. The tastiest fare on offer yesterday, however, was the Not- tinghamshire bowling and centurions Alan Fordham, Allan Lamb, and Russell Warren tucked into it with such relish that in the first two sessions Northants had advanced by 341. It was just the progress they needed to claw their way back into this game after Notts` mammoth score of 527, and the 219 added in the last session has given them a reasonable chance of winning. They could not have reached this position without a large handout from the Notts attack. Apart from Chris Cairns, both seamers and spinners seemed intent on exploring the greener patch in the middle of the pitch, allow- ing the batsmen to leave their front feet in the dressing room and all were presented with regular opportunities to cut or pull. Cairns worked up a furious pace as he had done the previous even- ing, but the opening partnership had reached 188 when he forced Richard Montgomerie into a fatal nibble outside off stump which Paul Pollard, fully 30 yards back at slip, gobbled up eagerly. However, Cairns had little support. Andy Pick could not summon up his usual nip, Bobby Chapman appeared intent only on testing Lamb`s hooking ability, and the confidence of left-arm spinners Jimmy Hindson and Andy Afford is clearly at a low ebb. Hindson has worked hard in the nets, but began his first spell on Friday night with two wides and then alternated between unreach- able long hops, full tosses, and the odd respectable delivery. He was not risked in the morning, but Afford`s bowling was similarly yippish. He is an intelligent cricketer, but has been out of the first team for a while, and a stuttery action is prone to drag- ging the ball down short and then over-compensating. Strange how this always seems to afflict left-arm spinners. Lamb does not need any invitation to lay back and flash the ball through the point region, and against this sort of bowling, a hundred was inevitable. His fifty, made up almost entirely of boundaries, took only 41 balls and by lunch he had become the fifth Northants player to score 20,000 first-class runs. That is an awful lot of square- cutting. "I read up about that record." he said afterwards, tongue firmly in cheek. By the time he had ventured down the wicket to reach his 89th first-class century, Fordham`s purposeful innings had ended when he was caught down the leg side, Rob Bailey, out for three, had probably strung himself up in the dressing room and Warren was batting out of his skin. There have been 114 boundaries in the innings so far and as each whistled across the straw-coloured outfield Tim Robinson winced. It was easy to see why he had prolonged the Notts innings for 11 hours. He knew as well as anyone that you cannot set fields for cafeteria bowling, and in mid-evening Warren helped himself to a maiden first-class century. They won`t come any easier. Kevin Curren and David Capel`s familiar mix of block and bash thrust Northants past the highest total of the summer, and gave them a fighting lead of 182. Source :: The Electronic Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk) Contributed by The Management (help@*ogi.edu) ====> Day 4, 28 Aug 95 Kumble gives Middlesex fair warning - Simon Hughes Northants (781 dec) bt Notts (527 & 157) by an innings & 97 runs IF MIDDLESEX win the toss at Uxbridge today and score 500 plus in their first innings, they had better watch out. Notts had done exactly that by tea on the second day of this match but still lost by an innings in a pulsating finish. Northants` knack of escapology keeps them within 11 points of championship leaders Middlesex and intensifies the focus on events behind Gatting Way and Brearley Close over the next four days. Northants will rue their fielding in the first innings here be- cause it let a fragile Notts side off the hook and consigned their bowlers to 250 overs of hard labour in the match. All are now carrying injuries, not the least of which is a large bump on Anil Kumble`s head inflicted when he collided with Tony Penberthy trying to take a looping edge from Wayne Noon`s bat which would have sealed the contest. Fortunately for Northants, the damage to their demon leg-spinner was only superficial and with three overs of the final 20 left he hauled himself up to bowl, spearing Andy Afford lbw with the next ball. He had bowled virtually unchanged from midday to finish with figures of five for 43 and take his season`s haul to 91 wickets. Northants lashed a further 72 runs in the first 35 minutes yes- terday, David Capel completing a century in only 87 balls, but Notts began their task of batting out the day without undue fuss. Paul Pollard was bowled by a beautiful in-ducker from Kevin Cur- ran, but Tim Robinson and Graeme Archer used their front-foot, bat-first approach to efficiently frustrate Kumble as they had done for more than a day in the first innings. But the loss of Robinson often seems to induce neurosis in the Notts batsmen, and after he freakishly played on with the total on 72, six wickets fell in 15 overs. Paul Johnson lobbed the ball back to Kumble off the leading edge in the same over, and Archer whipped round a straight one in the next. Chris Cairns was caught at short leg and Jeremy Snape clung on to a flying edge from Matthew Dowman`s bat. Time was ticking on however, and on featherbed pitches like this one dropped catches can be calamitous. Northants hopes seemed to have faded when Allan Lamb grassed a difficult chance offered by the obdurate Andy Pick, who hung around a further 40 minutes un- til Kumble at last snared him in the leg trap. Then the No 10, Bobby Chapman, displayed significantly more acu- men with the bat than he had with the ball, and was unlucky to depart given out caught at leg slip. Northants therefore had five overs to seperate the last pair but with Kumble`s persistence it was more than enough. Source :: The Electronic Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk) Contributed by The Management (help@*ogi.edu)