Rain cut short what had proved to be an even day of first-class cricket between Northamptonshire and Glamorgan.
Ricardo Vasconcelos won the toss and decided to bat despite the thick cloud covering overhead, the predicted rain finally arriving after 44.5 overs with Northamptonshire 128-4. Left handers Ricardo Vasconcelos and Emilio Gay opened the innings and had to face an opening pace barrage from Glamorgan’s Aussie duo of Michael Neser and Michael Hogan.
Skipper Vasconcelos sent the first ball from Neser, playing his last championship game of the season, to the boundary. He did the same to Dan Douthwaite’s first ball in the 13th over as the second change bowler, taking Northamptonshire past the 30 run mark in the opening hour.
Northamptonshire had won the opening Group 3 clash by seven wickets at home and both teams came into the game knowing that whatever the outcome, they would both be moving into Division Two of the re-vamped County Championship.
Timm van der Gugten finally got the breakthrough for the home side in the 14th over when he had Gay caught behind by skipper Chris Cooke the ball, that made it 40 for 1 with Gay departing for 22.
Van der Gugten then removed Vasconcelos, caught at short mid wicket by Kiran Carlson, to make it 55 for 2 in the 20th over. The Northamptonshire skipper had just passed 700 championship runs for the season on his way to 25.
Charlie Thurston and Rob Keogh successfully steered the visitors through to lunch and they resumed the second session on 81 for 2.
Van der Gugten took up where he left off before lunch by getting Keogh caught at first slip by Billy Root with the eighth ball after the resumption. Neser continued the home side’s great start to the afternoon session when he had Luke Proctor adjudged lbw for three.
When the rain arrived Thurston had moved on to 36 in 31 overs at the crease while Saif Zaib had looked composed with some eyecatching driving for 16. Rain arrived and set in heavily however, players taken from the field shortly before 3pm before play was called off for the day at 4.30pm.