Arthur left with 'hollow feeling' as Derbyshire are forced to play for draw at Northants

The South African admitted to 'a hollow feeling' after the match was abandoned as a draw more than 20 overs early due to the umpires calling the teams off for bad light with Northants 23 runs short of victory and four wickets in hand.

Arthur had gone into the final day believing his side would bowl out Northants, who were facing a record-breaking fourth innings run chase of 349, and claim victory.

But a superb 132 from in-form opener Ricardo Vasconcelos and 50s from Luke Procter and Calvin Harrison had Northants on the verge of a remarkable victory before the umpires intervened and called a halt to proceedings.

That decision infuriated everybody concened with Northants, but it was a relief for Derbyshire who escaped with a share of the spoils.

Arthur's side adopted plenty of delaying tactics as they slowed down play at every opportunity to try and halt the County's charge, and for what turned out to be the final few overs had nine fielders on the boundary.

Arthur was making no excuses for that, but admitted he was targeting a lot more at the start of Friday's play.

“It's kind of a bit of a hollow feeling because in the morning I thought we’d bowl them out," said Arthur. "But I thought Northants played really well.

"Vasconcelos and Procter were very good, and set the base up, and then obviously as the day progressed, we knew there was a bit of rain coming in.

"We obviously tried then, when we felt we couldn't get over the line, to get the draw points.

"It's not how we want to play, not how we like to play, but it was inevitable."

Derbyshire looked to be scenting victory with the quickfire dismissals of Vasconcelos and Harrison - the latter to an absolute beauty from Mohammed Abbas - which left Northants 268 for five.

But with James Sales hitting a swift 22 from 19 balls, they soon switched to defensive mode

“When we took the second new ball, that was of course our intention to take wickets to try to win the game, and we did get a couple of wickets there," said Arthur.

"But then it got really dark, and we knew that we were going to come off for light if we ever got within a whiff of bowling them out, so then it was a matter of just kind of defending our lead, if you like.

“You don't play to draw, and we'll never, ever play to draw, but it's a damn sight better than losing.

"So, we protected our lead and did what we thought was important to us in terms of coming away with the draw points."

There was also praise for Darren Lehmann's side.

"I think Northamptonshire’s a very, very good cricket team," said Arthur. "You can see why they're very close to being where they are, at the top of the table.

"I thought they played some really good cricket, but I thought so did we.

"So there are a lot of positives to take from it, but again it's about doing those positive things for longer.

"Coming into the ground before play, I thought we were 55-45 favourites to get the win, but as I say, Northants played exceptionally well."