Northants have to show ‘personal pride’ with their ‘backs against the wall’ against Glamorgan

And the South African admits the batting line-up has to show 'some character' and 'personal pride' as the County bid to save the game.

Northants will go into day three of their clash against Glamorgan in Cardiff in trouble at 49 for three, still trailing their hosts by a whopping 190 runs after they hit 424 all out in reply to Northants' below-par 185.

Two of the wickets to fall at Sophia Gardens came in the penultimate over of the day as Northants slipped from 44 for one, with George Bartlett being given out lbw when it appeared he inside edged the ball on to his pads, and nightwatchman Calvin Harrison falling two balls later.

The out-of-sorts Ricardo Vasconcelos had earlier fallen cheaply in the fourth over of the innings, driving loosely at a full delivery from James Harris and edging the ball to fourth slip.

Skipper Luke Procter remains unbeaten on 30 from 31 balls, and he will walk out to the crease on Sunday alongside James Sales, who is four not out.

Earlier, Glamorgan had piled on the agony for Darren Lehmann's side, making a mockery of Northants' troubles with the bat on the first day, as they eased from their overnight score of 82 for three to 424 from 107 overs, with four players hitting half-centuries.

Ben Kellaway top-scored with 95, while there were also sizeable contributions from Sam Northeast (67), Timm van der Gugten (61) and Kiran Carlson (54) as the home side cored freely, with Harry Conway (3-100), Justin Broad (3-82) and Ben Sanderson (2-90) the most successful Northants bowlers.

It all adds up to Northants staring down the barrel of a third Championship defeat of the season, unless they can provide some serious resistance with the bat, which is something they have struggled to do for most of the season.

"It's backs against the wall now, losing those two (wickets) at the end didn't help with a questionable decision which is going against us massively, it could have been 50 for one," said batting coach Smith.

"To get bowled out for 185 wasn't good enough, the batters need to show some character and play for personal pride with some big scores.

"We didn't bowl amazingly well, but that's fine, they've bowled well every other game.

"The batters need to play straight, they keep playing across the line and if they do that they're going to miss the ball and get out."

Glamorgan's Northeast, who dug in for 155 balls for his 67 runs, is very happy with where his side find themselves.

"That was a really good day, we've put ourselves in a commanding position and we've got to do it again with the ball now," he said.

"Kiran and Kellers played really well around me while I was grinding away, and it was nice to spend time in the middle to build those partnerships and put a score on the board, hopefully in a winning cause.

"We've been playing some good cricket, starting against Derbyshire, then a good performance down in Kent and we've continued that."

Day three is due to start at 11am on Sunday.

Quotes courtesy of Blake Bint