Ripley buoyed by County’s fightback

Northamptonshire head coach David Ripley believes his side’s performance against Somerset shows they “can win games in this division.”
Andrew Hall top scored with 66 in Northants' second inningsAndrew Hall top scored with 66 in Northants' second innings
Andrew Hall top scored with 66 in Northants' second innings

The County, chasing an improbable 404 for victory, resumed in the morning on 108-5 but managed to drag the game into the final session before finally succumbing for 351.

And Ripley, while obviously disappointed with the outcome, was proud of the fight shown by his men.

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He said: “We’ve been lacking a little bit of pride sometimes and some of our defeats have been heavy.

“We haven’t quite competed as well as we’d like but over the whole four days we won plenty of sessions against them and competed well and there was a real feeling that we could get over the line and a lot of credit to the players for pushing Somerset very hard.”

And with five games remaining, the first of which is against Nottinghamshire next month, Ripley is keen to put a positive number in the win column.

He added: “We’ve had little passages of play and we were pretty close against Lancashire but since then we haven’t been in a position to win a game.

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“We fought hard at Middlesex but we were always battling for a draw. This was a chance to win and we almost took it.

“I don’t want to get carried away with a glorious failure but we’ve definitely shown that we can win games in this division.

“The next time we play we’ll have an overseas bowler (Neil Wagner) which will hopefully make a difference to our attack and we’re looking forward to that game.”