MATCH PREVIEW: Northants vs Lancashire
Rothesay County Championship, Division Two
Friday May 9 - Monday May 12 2025, 11am - The County Ground, Wantage Road
After three successive draws at Emirates Old Trafford, most recently against Gloucestershire over the Bank Holiday weekend, Lancashire hit the road for match number five, taking on a Northamptonshire side who are captained by one of our own, Luke Procter.
A former Championship title-winner in 2011 with Lancashire, Royton’s Procter has been with the Midlanders since late 2017 and is in his third season as their red-ball captain.
While Lancashire have drawn all four Championship matches so far, Northamptonshire have drawn two and lost two. They were beaten inside three days at Leicestershire last weekend.
A quirk of the fixture list means that this is the second time these two counties will have met already this season. They played out a high-scoring draw at Emirates Old Trafford during the second week of the season last month.
This is the first of three remaining Championship games before the break for the start of the Vitality Blast later this month, and the Red Rose would love a win or two in that time to give their bid for promotion some significant momentum.
The major positive so far for the Red Rose county has been the form of new overseas signing Marcus Harris, who is the leading run-scorer across either division of the Championship with 585, including two centuries.
He has led some determined batting efforts this term.
Opposition
Since the early-season meeting at Emirates Old Trafford, coach Darren Lehmann has handed an overseas debut to fellow Australian, the experienced seamer Harry Conway.
The tall seamer from Sydney, aged 32, plays his state cricket for South Australia and impressed in his first appearance in county cricket at the weekend, claiming eight wickets in defeat at Leicestershire.
He is available for four matches in total.
Lehmann, like Lancashire’s coach Dale Benkenstein, will no doubt be frustrated at a winless start to the new season.
Though, after an opening round defeat at home to Kent, they did have the better of draws against the Red Rose and then Derbyshire away, games in which they posted first-innings totals of 496 and 500-8. So Lehmann can point to that as a source of encouragement.
Captain and opener Luke Procter is their leading run-scorer so far with 281 runs, including a century, while on-loan Nottinghamshire leg-spinner Calvin Harrison and seam-bowling all-rounder Justin Broad have both taken 11 wickets so far.
Northamptonshire finished fourth in last season’s Division Two, winning twice. They replaced John Sadler with ex-Australia head coach Lehmann ahead of 2025.
Opposition player to watch
Top order batter Saif Zaib has enjoyed an impressive start to the new summer, positing two centuries in 268 runs and claiming six wickets with his useful left-arm spin.
Zaib scored 116 and 105 in the draws against Lancashire and Derbyshire, also returning two wickets in each innings of the opening-round defeat against Kent.
A classy batter who has plenty of power, Zaib first played for Northamptonshire’s first team, in a friendly, at the age of 15, and made his List A and first-class debuts at the age of 16 and 17 respectively.
Now aged 27, he is a linchpin of Northamptonshire’s middle order across all formats and is closing in on 5,000 senior career runs.
A former England Under-17, Zaib is likely to bat at number six against the Red Rose, as he did last month.
Previous meeting
Josh Bohannon’s super final day 155 helped get Lancashire out of some trouble against Northamptonshire at Emirates Old Trafford last month, helping to secure 10 points for a draw.
Bohannon was in determined mood, batting for more than seven hours, after the Red Rose had been asked to follow-on in reply to the visitors’ first-innings 496.
Having been bowled out in their first innings, for 228, during the first half of day three, the county’s number three ended the day on 67 not out and continued to resist for a large part of day four, which Lancashire finished on 351-9.
Earlier in the match, Saif Zaib hit a middle order 116 to advance Northamptonshire’s cause after they had been inserted, with Tom Hartley’s left-arm spin accounting for three wickets.
Keaton Jennings opened up with 96, but he gained little support as the home side conceded a lead of 268. Loan debutant leg-spinner Calvin Harrison returned 4-34.
Nottinghamshire’s Harrison had an excellent debut. He hit 56 down the order in the first innings and then claimed 7-119 from a marathon 57 overs in the second innings.
However, he was ultimately - and thankfully - thwarted as Bohannon shared a second wicket 120 with captain Jennings (49) and a fourth-wicket 96 with Marcus Harris (50).
What they said
Head Coach Dale Benkenstein believes Lancashire are getting closer to breaking through in this season’s Rothesay County Championship.
The county have started the summer with four successive draws, and their coach feels the fortitude shown at stages in games has built confidence within the players.
For example, they batted out the final day for a draw against Gloucestershire at home on Monday, finishing on 255-8 having earlier conceded a first-innings lead of 139.
“There's some good sides and some good players (in Division Two),” said Benkenstein.
“We are trying to take steps forward. I think we’re taking those strides, getting 450 in the first innings against Gloucestershire. We haven't got 450 here since I've been here, so there's some good steps forward.
“We just keep building on that.
“It's just about us trying to get on the right side, and we're getting closer.”
How’s Stat!
Lancashire’s vice captain Josh Bohannon has scored 13 career first-class centuries, and four of them having come in Rothesay County Championship matches against Northamptonshire.
Of those four, two have come at home and two away at Wantage Road.
In 2023, Bohannon scored hundreds at home and away, 128 in a home draw and 175 away in an innings victory. A repeat of that this weekend would do very nicely.