Anderson bags five as Lancs on top at Northants

Rothesay County Championship, Division Two, County Ground, Northampton (day 2) Lancashire 384: Bohannon 90, Wells 87, Jones 71; Sanderson 5-79 Northamptonshire 215-9: McManus 54*; Anderson 5-64, Bailey 3-46 Northants (3 pts), trail Lancashire (6 pts) by 169 runs with one first-innings wicket remaining Lancashire captain James Anderson rolled back the years with a five-wicket haul at Wantage Road to put his side firmly in control of their County Championship Division Two game against Northamptonshire. The 43-year-old former Test bowler, appointed as the Red Rose's permanent skipper this season, took 5-64 to leave Northamptonshire reeling at 41-5 in response to the visitors' 384. Anderson was ably backed up by Tom Bailey (3-46), but the home side fought back courageously, led by an undefeated 54 from Lewis McManus to close on 215-9 – just 20 runs short of avoiding the follow-on.

It was a productive day for veteran seamers, with Ben Sanderson – six years Anderson's junior – earlier mopping up the Lancashire tail to finish with 5-79. County Championship, day two: Five-for for Anderson, radio comms and text updates With Lancashire resuming at 346-7, Bailey launched a single-handed bid to lift their total towards the 400 region, crashing Sanderson for two cover boundaries in the opening over of the day. However, George Balderson departed without increasing his overnight score of 21, taken at second slip off Sanderson, who then tempted Ajeet Singh Dale to try and pull a ball that was too close to him and top-edged to McManus for one.

A late flurry from Bailey, which included heaving Harry Conway over the deep square leg fence, ended when he holed out for 39, having contributed all but three runs of Lancashire's morning tally. Bailey also set the tone when Northamptonshire began their reply, dismissing home captain Luke Procter for a second-ball duck before Anderson took centre stage, ripping out four more top-order wickets in the space of just 22 deliveries. The first of those, Calvin Harrison (four), could feel hard done by – and did, standing for a moment with hand on hip after he was adjudged caught behind to a ball that seemed to have evaded his outside edge.

Anderson should have taken two in successive deliveries, with Harry Singh's drop at second slip ensuring Nathan McSweeney survived his first ball in county cricket – but Ricardo Vasconcelos was castled by an inswinger for 25 before Saif Zaib (four) and James Sales (two) both fell cheaply. George Bartlett (31) counter-attacked either side of lunch, whipping Anderson off his pads for four and dispatching the Red Rose skipper to the rope again with two cleanly-struck straight drives as he and McSweeney (32) began the rebuilding job. The pair added 62 for the sixth wicket before Bailey returned for his second spell and made the breakthrough almost immediately, finding additional bounce as Bartlett fended into the hands of second slip.