Mixed emotions for Northants head coach Sadler as rain washes out final day

The head coach was left frustrated as the lack of play denied his team the chance to push for their first victory of the season, with Glamorgan due to resume their second innings on 104 for three, still 230 runs adrift of the County's massive first innings score of 605 for six declared.

But he was also delighted with the performance levels of his players in a game they totally domimated from ball one on Friday.

There were some excellent individual performances.

With the ball Ben Sanderson claimed the 19th five-wicket haul of his career as Glamorgan were bowled our for 271 in their first innings, and then with the bat there was a double century for Karun Nair (202no) and tons for both Ricardo Vasconcelos (182) and Saif Zaib (100).

But it was the wet weather throughout Monday that was to have the final say, with play eventually being abandoned for the day at 4pm, and Sadler was in a philosophical mood over that.

“If we’d have got maybe two sessions in today, I think we'd have won the game," said the head coach. "But the weather has beaten us.

"We can't get too down about it though. It probably saved us in Sussex (in the opening match of the season) and we've lost one here, so we're probably level par."

On his team's performance against Glamorgan, Sadler said: "I thought the lads were great and I think we've played some brilliant cricket.

"We've just said there in the dressing room, if we apply ourselves like that, and play cricket like that consistently throughout the year, we'll be in positions to win games as we were today.

“So, it was frustrating, but of the three days we've controlled the game, we've played a brilliant game of cricket, so we’re pretty pleased with that."

Northants claimed a 15-point haul for the draw, and the result leaves them in fourth place in the division two table, with all the teams having played three times.

Sussex and Middlesex are the top two after they claimed the first wins in the division this season this week, but the County are only 12 points off the top ahead of their trip to third-placed Leicestershire on Friday.

Quotes courtesy of Jeremy Blackmore