Middlesex coach Vilas praises ‘excellent’ Northants but is left to rue dropped catches

But he was also quick to praise the efforts of the County's ton-up stars James Sales and Luke Procter, saying the pair played 'incredibly well' to lead their team to their target of 311 to win on the final afternoon.

Opener Procter was put down three times on his way to 107, and that played a big part in Northants setting themselves up for the win as they eased to 239 for two to break the back of the chase.

There were still some late flutters as both centurions were dismissed and Sam Robinson and Saif Zaib went cheaply, but Lewis McManus and Justin Broad got Northants over the line to record a second win of the summer in the Rothesay County Championship Division Two.

The fact Northants won with 10 overs to spare might suggest the Middlesex declaration from skipper Toby Roland-Jones was a generous one.

But Vilas admitted it was a tough call to make, as the Londoners had to give themselves time to take 10 wickets on a good batting surface to win the game.

“There's so many ifs and buts, and I think we also were realistic," said Vilas, who was taking charge of his first game as interim head coach following the dismissal of Richard Johnson.

"We wanted to try and give ourselves an opportunity of enough overs to bowl them out, because knew it was a good pitch.

"You need as many overs as possible to try and get the result and we back our team. We’ve got a good set of bowlers and boys in the field. Unfortunately, it just didn’t go our way.

“I thought the boys played some excellent cricket leading up to the final day, and we thought from Tuesday night, with the way we played, the way we got into the position, we thought it was a good opportunity for us to go for the win.

"We wanted to showcase some of our skills and put ourselves under pressure and try and get a win, because that's how we want to play and what we want to do.

“Unfortunately, we did leave a couple of chances out there, but I thought they batted incredibly well, their two batters. For them to get hundreds in the last innings was excellent.

"But the main positive for us is that the boys battled 100 per cent of the way, the whole way through.

"At no point throughout the final day, and also the full four days really, did they drop their heads.

"We tried to take a positive option and move forward and get into good positions because this is where we want to be, in a half-decent position to try and get in and win the game."

Quotes courtesy of Jeremy Blackmore