Northants targeting first innings lead after fighting back at Warwickshire

The Bears will resume their first innings on 142 for four, still 108 runs adrift of the County’s 250 all out.

On a difficult day for batting, Northants lost their last five wickets for just 37 runs after resuming on 200 for five, with Warwickshire seamer Ollie Hannibal-Dolby claiming brilliant career-best figures of seven for 46 from 26.4 overs.

But the home side also found things tough, with Jack White claiming three for 37, Will Rhodes top scoring with 44.

Dan Mousley (20) and Ed Barnard (4) are the not out batters, and Northants, who need to win to keep alive their hopes of avoiding relegation, will be hoping they can make early inroads on Tuesday morning.

"It's a tough surface to score on,” said White, who continued his excellent form with the ball this summer.

“We made 250 and now they are in a similar position.

“One end seems to have a bit more carry than the other and it is moving around off the seam and there's some swing too.

“The ball was moving around a lot in the morning, especially early on under lights with the new ball.

“It looked like it was doing a hell of a lot, so if we have a crack at them in similar conditions in the morning it might be pretty good.

“We would have liked to get to 300 but it was difficult with the early start under lights.

“It seemed to do quite a lot with the new ball and it would have been nice for us to get more than one wicket with the new ball.

"But it is still doing enough to make batting tricky so we have just got to bowl well and use the conditions."

Play is due to start at 10.30am.

Quotes courtesy of Brian Halford