County Championship: Zaib ton boosts Northants against Glamorgan

Northants batter Saif Zaib notched up his sixth century of the season and Glamorgan leg-spinner Mason Crane claimed a second five-for in successive matches between the showers at Northampton.

There was plenty of entertainment in the 25.3 overs possible on day three as Northants added a further 104 runs for the loss of four wickets.

Zaib hit 145 off 186 balls to match the tally of six hundreds most recently achieved for Northants by South African all-rounder Lance Klusener in 2006.

But Kiran Carlson took two wickets and Crane claimed his fifth before a run-out gave Glamorgan maximum bowling points.

Glamorgan's promotion hopes would not be harmed by a draw, providing rivals Middlesex and Derbyshire do not produce a positive result.

Play started at 13:50 BST after steady rain for much of the morning, with new batter Aadi Sharma quickly going on the attack and hitting 25 off 19 balls before he was well caught on the mid-wicket boundary by Zain Ul Hassan off Carlson.

Lewis McManus was caught behind, cutting, for two to give Crane his five-for and Carlson, who was bowling because fellow off-spinner Ben Kellaway was missing with a calf injury, pinned Liam Guthrie lbw without scoring.

But Zaib took control as he shielded debutant Ben Whitehouse from the strike, reaching his century off 136 balls and eventually taking his boundary tally to 22 fours and two sixes.

At times the Northants scoring rattled along rapidly in a manner fitting Saturday's T20 Blast Finals Day.

The new ball was bringing Glamorgan little joy but Zaib's efforts to farm the bowling finally went wrong when he was run out going for a second run to deep point, as Ul Hassan's throw was flicked on to the stumps by Chris Cooke to earn the Welsh side their third bowling point.

There was just time for Nirvan Ramesh, 17, to get off the mark in his first Championship innings before the rain grew heavier and the players went off at 15:26 BST.

Northants' Saif Zaib told BBC Radio Northampton:

"I was with Mike Hussey (former Northants player, now Welsh Fire coach) in the Hundred so we spoke a bit about (the tally of centuries), I got a nice message off him and it's nice to be in that kind of company.

"As a batting unit we were trying to be as positive as we can be, you can't control the weather but we were trying to put ourselves in a position where we can hopefully influence the game, though it would have been nice for me to be not out going into tomorrow.

"I take every day as it comes and Saturday will be a great moment for the club and for me on my first Finals Day, hopefully we can put on a show."

Glamorgan's Mason Crane told BBC Sport Wales:

"We came out with a few objectives, to take wickets and drag our over-rate back, we managed to do both those and it was an interesting day while we had play. At one stage that wasn't looking likely so we'll take that.

"Injuries are out of my control but I feel like when I've been on the park I've bowled well. Missing out on the first seven championship games was a shame but I'm happy to be on the field now.

"Even if Middlesex and Derbyshire did (produce a positive result) it's not the end of the world, we've been playing some good cricket. We've got to be professional and we've got a couple of quite big weeks, but that's why we put in all the effort to play big matches towards the end of the season."

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