Struggling Northants slump to rock bottom as Middlesex cruise to victory

The County went into the game targeting a win to revive their promotion hopes, instead they were well beaten at Merchant Taylors' School, and with Derbyshire hammering Glamorgan by 10 wickets it means Northants have hit rock-bottom with four matches of the season remaining.

John Sadler's side are now the only outfit yet to win a four-day game in division two, and they are a whopping 47 points off the top two.

With day three having been rained off in Northwood, the County began the final day needing three wickets to wrap up the Middlesex innings, and they did that in quick time as the home side were bowled out for 264 to lead by 57 runs.

Ben Sanderson finished up with six for 64.

Northants' batters were then once again found wanting as they slumped to 104 for six in their second innings, and although Justin Broad (30 from 74 balls) and Lewis McManus (24 from 54) showed some resistance, it wasn't enough as they collapsed to 167 all out.

Skipper Luke Procter top-scored with 33, while veteran seamer Toby Roland-Jones was once again the main man for Middlesex, grabbing six for 58 to end the match with 11 wickets.

That meant Middlesex needed 111 to win from a minimum of 25 overs, and they cruised home at 114 for two in just 16.4 overs, with Sam Robson hitting 64 not out from 42 balls.

It was a depressing day and result for Northants, and bowling coach Rory Kleinveldt pointed to the team's deficiencies in the field as a major issue - stating that dropping catches has been the team's 'Achilles heel' this summer.

"I think we came to the ground with a little bit of optimism," said Kleinveldt. "But as the day unfolded we found ourselves under a lot of pressure having to try and bat out the day and unfortunately we weren't able to do that.

"Justin Broad has bowled beautifully the last month or so, but again dropping catches is not helping us.

"If we take our catches earlier in the game we could have had them under a little bit more pressure and been a little bit closer to them in the first innings.

"That has been our Achilles heel all summer.

"Dropping catches seems to be a bit of a plague in our team at the moment and is something we need to address."

On the top order's struggles with the bat, the South African said: "No-one means to get out.

"We asked our batters in the morning to play more positively but we lost a few early wickets and that put us on the back foot."

In a match where there weren't many positives, the performance of seamer Sanderson was the highlight from a Northants perspective as he claimed eight wickets in the match to take his tally for the season to 37.

And Kleinveldt admitted: "Sando has been unbelievable again this summer for us.

"He has been a class act for us and hopefully he can keep doing that for a few more years."

Northants are back in action on Thursday when they travel to Bristol to take on fifth-placed Gloucestershire.

Quotes courtesy of Jon Batham