Rossington praises Procter but says Northants have to learn lessons from Lancashire loss

But the County skipper admitted that he and his team-mates have to learn the lessons from their Old Trafford setback.

On the face of it, Lancashire were thumping 206-run winners, but the fact is that Northants were a matter of just 13.3 overs away from sealing a battling draw in Group 3 of the LV= Insurance County Championship.

That was mainly down to the superb efforts of former Red Rose all-rounder Procter, who batted for more than six hours and 294 balls before being last man out for 93 as Northants were dismissed for 218 in their second innings.

The County had started the final day on 59 for three, a massive 365 runs behind, knowing they had to bat out 100 overs to earn a share for the spoils.

Thanks to Procter, along with battling efforts from Ricardo Vasconcelos, Tom Taylor, Nathan Buck and Ben Sanderson, they very nearly got there despite at one point slumping to 96 for six, but Lancashire sealed the win, with leg-spinner Matt Parkinson and Luke Wood both claiming three wickets.

"At the start of the day we were calling for someone to stand up to do a job and Luke (Procter) has done it brilliantly," said Rossington, who was one of Wood's victims, falling for eight from 10 balls.

"It's unfortunate he was not able to see the job through but it was an outstanding effort.

"He is the sort of character you want in your team who will show fight to the very end. He is someone you look to in that sort of situation.

"I think he had a bit of a point to prove and he enjoyed - it was unjust really as he deserved to get us over the line."

In the end, Northants were made to pay for their poor batting performance in the first innings, when they were bowled out for 177 in reply to the home side's 305 all out.

From then on they were always chasing the game, and despite Procter's heroics, they fell short to suffer their first defeat of the season.

"Moving forward for us this was a great learning curve," admitted Rossington.

"The start we had on Sunday wasn't ideal, but the damage was done in that first innings.

"Going forward we need to make sure we bat big in that first innings and don't leave ourselves that mountain to climb."

Northants are back in action on Thursday when they host Glamorgan.

The Welsh county will also go into that game off the back of a defeat, as they were beaten by eight wickets by Sussex at the weekend.

The other Group 3 match saw Yorkshire beat Kent by 200 runs, and those results mean that Northants are now fifth in the table, having claimed just two points from the Lancashire encounter.