VIEW FROM THE BLUES: Another crucial performance from unsung hero Hall

The Welshmen rested their star players for this weekend’s YB40 semi-finals, and it was a win we all penned in - including Glamorgan, judging by their performance.

We can only hope Hampshire are as equally indifferent for this week game as their thoughts turn to Lord’s, while Ghambir going home suggests Essex have all but given up on promotion.

The result pitch we should have had against Gloucestershire for the previous home championship game was laid out in front of our most powerful seam attack of the season as the visitors were inserted on a Wantage Road pitch as green as a hippy’s recycling bin (and adorned with sizeable craters in the popping crease).

Glamorgan did look interested at 142 for two with plenty of wayward stuff to tuck into, especially off Mohammad Azharullah, who is looking tired and in need of some serious conditioning over the winter to be able to last a full season in division one on better pitches.

It is great that he has signed a new deal, but he has been worked out a bit.

But, like I say, if you have genuine pace you have a career in county cricket.

This being Glamorgan, they collapsed and ended up 241 all out on a tricky first day pitch, which was about par.

Every time Trent Copeland has played for us we have taken maximum bowling points, with that familiar calming line and length from one end setting up Steven Crook for four for 66 and David Willey for three for 54 at the other.

We have taken 37 out of 39 bowling points this season.

Also, special praise to David Murphy on those bowling points.

He was indifferent last year and occasionally sloppy behind the timber, but a he has been revelation this season and a big part of our success.

Northants took to the crease brimming with confidence, but one or two careless demob happy shots left us with work to do at 236 for six.

Openers Stephen Peters and James Middlebrook made solid 50s, and there were more runs for David Sales (49). What David Smith is going to do with the big man, who is out of contract at the end of the season, is a huge head scratcher, as he will soon be our top run scorer.

So enter David ‘Hollywood’ Willey, the adrenaline of Edgbaston still racing through his veins and he smashed 81 from 73 balls with six more maximums to take the game away from the Welshmen.

If you combine all three of those match winning knocks at the Twenty20, YB40 and this one, you have three personal bests - the innings lasted 200 balls, he scored 308 runs, and smashed 20 massive sixes.

That is the sort of thing that gets the big clubs ready to buy out your contract!

I hope Willey stays with Northants, but it could be he has simply moved out of our pay grade this August.

I think he is free to be himself now that David Capel has gone, and is thinking less about technique and tactics, and more about taking the attack to the bowlers to indulge his personality.

Andrew Hall (91) guided the tail past the fifth batting point and finished just short of his fourth ton of the season as Azharullah couldn’t quite hold out, the Pakistani celebrating that two year deal with his first ever run for Northampton at Wantage Road in all competitions.

Just the one record partnership from that late order this time around, with Hall and Willey putting on 115 for the seventh wicket, the highest against Glamorgan since 1922.

This is our 20th record this season in all competitions, and when you bat all the way down like Northants do, the collapse simply doesn’t come (unless you are stitched with a rotten pitch in Manchester and a coin with two tails on it!) and 45 batting points so far is a testament to that.

Northants have averaged 400 at home in the first innings this season at Wantage Road, and the players are re-writing the way the game is played.

So two days to ‘bowl em out’ and ‘no problemo’, done and dusted by 4pm on day three.

Glamorgan’s second innings 187 was a lazy effort, as they once again lost the last eight wickets for less than 100, and this with with Willey hampered by a side strain and the pitch improving.

The Welsh side had both eyes on that semi-final, it seems.

Nine catches in the match from Murphy caught my eye, but also a big round of applause is due to Hall, who has been the glue of the championship team all year.

Two more wickets here means he now has 28 at 24, and he has also scored 800 runs at 62 - his partnership-breaking wickets have been just as vital as his bonus-point securing runs.

You know he is just going to sit there and nurdle it around and feed the guy in nick to build partnerships and not waft his wicket away any more.

And when he bowls it’s the keeper up and accuracy to pin the batsmen to the crease to on put the squeeze.

I think he has finally accepted what his role is in the team, the combative midfielder who puts his foot in to keep the ball.

Player of the Season this year is going to be a very tough one to call.