Three late wickets boosted Northants as they fought back to stay in their opening game of the 2026 Rothesay County Championship Division Two season against Lancashire.

The visitors had the better of day one at a blustery County Ground, and were sitting pretty at 312 for four going into the final 12 overs of the day.

Josh Bohanan top scored with 90 and Luke Wells made 87 and Michael Jones 71 as the Red Rose looked to have made the most of winning the toss.

But two late wickets with the second new ball for Harry Conway (2-80) and one for Ben Sanderson (2-55) pegged them back to 322 for seven, before they added a further 24 runs to close on 346 for seven.

There was also a wicket apiece for skipper Luke Procter, Saif Zaib and leg-spinner Calvin Harrison, who got through 21 overs, but it was a struggle for James Sales, whose eight wicketless overs cost 52 runs.

Northants, who handed debuts to Australian batter Nathan McSweeney and winter signing Louis Kimber, went into the game without the injured Justin Broad (back), and bowling coach Glenn Chapple declared himself pleased with the team’s efforts on a tough opening day.

“We would have bowled if we’d won the toss, but we knew it was going to be a good surface, said the former

Lancashire player and head coach.

“But there was always going to be a little bit in it early on. And I think looking back, I think we'd be reasonably happy how we bowled.

“I thought we were a bit unlucky in the first hour. We went past the bat a number of times and have made earlier inroads on another day, but overall, the effort levels were great.

“That's what we looked for. We stuck at the task all day. Can always look at things you could have done better, but we’re really happy with the effort.

“Both Sanderson and Conway were excellent.

“Sando worked hard through the winter to get fit for the start of the season and to bowl 20 overs plus on the first day is a great effort, a great effort from both of them.

“All we can do is work hard as a team, and that's what we did today.”

Lancashire batter Bohanon said: “if you look back at the first session, we felt like we worked really hard under quite tough conditions to start with, but I thought Northamptonshire started really well with the ball as well.

“We worked really hard for the best part of two sessions and got ourselves in a really good position and fair play to Northants in that last session there.

“They bowled really well and probably got their rewards that they feel they deserve. But yeah, we'll naturally feel quite disappointed from where we were.

“Conway and Sanderson are obviously great bowlers on a pitch that, when they put it in the right areas, there’s enough there.

“It was always going to be hard work, we knew that, but overall, we’ve got to take the positives.

“You know, that was our first proper run out, and I thought as a whole, we played really well.”