Match Preview: Lancashire vs. Northamptonshire, Rothesay County Championship
Lancashire v Northamptonshire
Rothesay County Championship, Division Two
Thursday 20 - Sunday 23 August, 2026, 11am
Emirates Old Trafford Cricket Ground
Six games to go, and Lancashire are 36 points behind second-placed Kent in Division Two.
Significant work to do for promotion, absolutely, but it’s by no means an insurmountable task for the Red Rose county.
Steven Croft and Sir James Anderson will hand a debut to new overseas signing, the Pakistani spinner Noman Ali, who knows this neck of the woods pretty well having previously played at Farnworth as a league professional.
Lancashire (81 points) are seventh in the table and face a Northamptonshire (115) side who sit third on the ladder.
The two sides drew the opening game of the season at Wantage Road back in April.
This is the first Championship match since late June, Lancashire losing against Derbyshire at Chesterfield last time out. Northamptonshire were beaten away at league leaders Durham.
Opposition
While Lancashire have won two of their eight games so far, Northamptonshire have won three to put themselves within striking distance of promotion.
They are just two points off second-placed Kent.
Since the last round of Championship matches at the end of June, coach Darren Lehmann and his players have triumphed in the Vitality Blast, having beaten Somerset and then Hampshire at Finals Day last month.
Captained in the Championship by ex-Red Rose all-rounder Luke Procter.
Northamptonshire will field Australian batter Nathan McSweeney and Indian leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal as their overseas players.
McSweeney is their leading run-scorer with 589 runs in Division Two and experienced seamer Ben Sanderson their leading wicket-taker with 39.
This season has been an impressive one for Lehmann and Procter, with the county finishing second-bottom in Division Two last season with only two wins from 14 games.
Opposition player to watch
Leg-spin bowling all-rounder Calvin Harrison is having a season he will not forget in a hurry.
He has scored 477 Championship runs with two centuries and has taken 16 wickets this season.
The former Nottinghamshire man has won the Vitality Blast with the Steelbacks and also, over the weekend just gone, The Hundred with the Trent Rockets.
Aged 28, Harrison is also one of the best fielders in the county game and toured Abu Dhabi in the winter just gone with the England Lions.
He will be hoping promotion makes it a hat-trick of team successes in 2026.
Previous meeting
Lancashire fell one wicket short of claiming a season-opening win against Northamptonshire at Wantage Road in early April.
The Red Rose bossed a game which saw Northamptonshire set a victory target of 321 late on day three.
They started day four on 9-1 and slipped to 50-6, only for the Red Rose to be defied by a determined 95 not out from middle-order man George Bartlett.
This was a game without a century and headlined by eight wickets in the match for Sir James Anderson, including a first-innings five-for.
Anderson had elected to bat and Lancashire posted a sturdy 384 all out, built around 87 for opener Luke Wells and 90 for Josh Bohannon. They shared a second-wicket 132.
Anderson (5-66) and Tom Bailey shared nine wickets to bowl Northamptonshire out for 258 before the Red Rose stumbled to 194 all out second time around on an attritional pitch.
Unfortunately, Lancashire just ran out of time with the ball late on day four and had to settle for 14 points and the draw.
What they said
The 18 counties face an extended end-of-season six-game block in the County Championship, and Marcus Harris says: “That might work out in our favour.”
The Australian overseas batter reason: “Just with the position we’re in, we might be able to get on a roll. There’s a lot of cricket left.”
In previous seasons, counties have entered the final stages of the season with four Championship matches in September. But the earlier completion of the limited overs competitions - aside from the Metro Bank One-Day Cup final - has left almost half of the four-day schedule remaining.
“We've played in patches of good stuff and not so good stuff. So that's our challenge - to be consistent and a bit better,” said Harris.
“The schedule is quite full-on at the end, so you're going to have to manage your players. But there's no reason why we can't do that.”
How’s Stat!
Lancashire’s last Championship defeat at home to Northamptonshire was at Emirates Old Trafford in 1999. Since then, the Red Rose have won four and drawn six meetings between the two counties.
Keaton Jennings needs 82 runs to reach 13,000 first-class career runs, while Josh Bohannon needs 79 to reach 6,000.
New signing Noman Ali is only three wickets away from 500 in his first-class career.
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