Lampitt's burst too late by far
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Your support makes all the difference.England discards have been enjoying profitable times lately, giving rise to the thought that these were just the circumstances for Graeme Hick to deliver a powerful retort to his omission from the side at Old Trafford. On a day of hot sunshine, a placid Wantage Road wicket had the appearance of a welcome mat.
England discards have been enjoying profitable times lately, giving rise to the thought that these were just the circumstances for Graeme Hick to deliver a powerful retort to his omission from the side at Old Trafford. On a day of hot sunshine, a placid Wantage Road wicket had the appearance of a welcome mat.
Hick has been forced, however, to spend much of this match observing from first slip, pondering how to arrest Northamptonshire's progress towards a forbidding first-innings total. As captain, he has Worcestershire's promotion campaign to consider, not merely his own future.
One suspects he would have preferred the simple demands of batting. No matter which permutations Hick chose as he rotated his seven bowlers, nothing much deflected North-amptonshire from their purpose as they passed 500 for the third time this season. Building on the foundations laid impressively by Matthew Hayden on Friday, they reached 519 before a final, successful burst of lively seam from Stuart Lampitt ended the innings a half-hour or so before tea.
Hayden's 147 off 218 balls, his third century of the summer, enabled him to become the third batsman in the country to top 1,000 for the season, all of them Australian. Like Michael Bevan of Sussex and Yorkshire's Darren Lehmann, Hayden has been an invaluable servant to his county, although he has been ably assisted here.
Adrian Rollins and Mal Loye provided staunch support on the opening day, at the end of which, at 340 for 4, Russell Warren and Tony Penberthy were ideally placed to exploit probably the best batting conditions so far, before the ball began to bite for the spinners.
The opportunity was not wasted. Warren, having hit eight fours to complete his 50, perished prematurely, bowled swinging inelegantly across the line to Lampitt in an unavailing chase for a fifth batting bonus. But after Graeme Swann's attempt to bolster his all-rounder status had met a swift end, Penberthy and David Ripley added real substance with a partnership of 108 in 33 overs for the seventh wicket.
Penberthy's painstaking 83, off 234 balls with six fours, revealed impressive patience, defying Worcestershire's attempts to exploit the first signs of turn. Hick, whose off-spin has not been seen many times this year, gave himself by some distance his longest bowl but ended wicketless, and neither Richard Illingworth nor Vik-ram Solanki got many past the bat.
When Ripley completed his half-century, it was only the third time in Northamptonshire's history that six different batsmen had made that score or higher in the same innings, the other occasions recalled as 1914, against Sussex at Hove, and 1995 against Nottinghamshire here, when Warren made 154, Allan Lamb 115, David Capel 114no and David Fordham and Richard Montgomerie waded in with fifties.
Ripley was brilliantly caught by David Leatherdale at extra cover off Illingworth, but it was only when Lampitt returned that relief was obtained, as he accounted at last for Penberthy, also caught at extra cover, before two wickets in consecutive balls saw off Darren Cousins and Jason Brown, giving Lampitt figures of 5 for 63.
Hick was left to reflect painfully that his own star Australian is a bowler, Glenn McGrath, whose absence to prepare for international duty in Melbourne has been sorely felt. Hick was soon at the crease, with Worcestershire's openers Philip Weston and Elliott Wilson back in the pavilion, so the prospect of Worcestershire using this match to regain the Division Two leadership looked remote.
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