Lancashire boost promotion chances with win over Glamorgan
Thursday 23 July 2015 14:22, UK
Lancashire gave their County Championship Division Two promotion hopes a massive boost by clinching an innings and 157-run victory over Glamorgan at Colwyn Bay.
No play was possible before lunch, but after reaching 181-5 Glamorgan then fell apart, losing their last five wickets for just 12 runs in 53 balls.
Lancashire's victory, their seventh in 12 Championship games this season, takes them 32 points ahead of Surrey in second place, although the southern county have a game in hand. But Lancashire are also 68 points ahead of Glamorgan in third.
Lancashire's next four-day game is also against Glamorgan at Old Trafford next month and a favourable result there could ensure they return to Division One at the first attempt.
Resuming on 146-5, Chris Cooke and Andrew Salter resisted for almost an hour before James Faulkner made the initial breakthrough.
The Australian left-arm seamer had Cooke, who made 56, caught by Paul Horton at second slip from a ball Cooke could have left alone.
Faulkner was then taken off as the light deteriorated but, without any addition to the score, Arron Lilley trapped Craig Meschede with his second ball and two balls later bowled Graham Wagg to record a double-wicket maiden.
Lilley, who took six wickets in the game, would have impressed the England lead spin-bowling coach Peter Such who had travelled to north Wales to watch the promising 24-year-old off-spinner.
Salter, who again played a watchful innings (34), was the next to go when he offered no shot to Simon Kerrigan's left-arm spin and the innings ended when Michael Hogan skied Kerrigan to cover.
Academy duo Lewis McManus and Mason Crane saved Hampshire from a sixth defeat of the season as they condemned Durham to their first draw at the Ageas Bowl.
Chasing 305 for victory, the hosts slumped to 39-5 as Chris Rushworth and Ryan Pringle carved through the top-order.
Rushworth indeed completed a most unusual hat-trick, taking wickets with three successive deliveries stretched over three overs and two innings. Having ended Hampshire's first innings by removing James Tomlinson at the end of his 22nd over and Gareth Berg with the first ball of his 23rd, he then returned to have Michael Carberry caught behind with the first ball of Hampshire's second innings.
Liam Dawson and Jimmy Adams followed in Rushworth's wake as Pringle (5-63) took over.
But a 43-run stand between McManus and Joe Gatting - before the wicket-keeper and Berg added 53 for the seventh wicket - frustrated the visitors, while the former scored 53 from 166 balls to clinch his maiden half-century.
Rain slowed Durham's victory bid further as a 30-minute shower lost nine overs and allowed McManus, now joined by Jackson Bird, to regroup and although Bird (12) was trapped in front by Pringle, McManus clipped the final delivery from Rushworth for four to save the game with Hampshire 179-9 at the close.
The draw all-but ended Durham's title dreams and kept Hampshire glued to the bottom of Division One.
Earlier in the day, teenage leg spinner Crane was denied a debut five-for as he took four scalps to end with figures of 4-72 as Durham declared their second innings on 190-4.
Mark Stoneman made sure the board kept moving with an aggressive 88, which included two sixes both of which cleared the boundary comfortably, but Paul Collingwood's declaration came just too late.
