Cricket: Knight holds the fort

Northamptonshire. . . . . . . . . . . . . .444-9 dec

Essex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .266-6

SHORN of Gooch, Waugh, Pringle and Foster, Essex will rarely be as ripe for the plucking as this, but, on yesterday's evidence, Northamptonshire appear to lack the wherewithal to do more than ruffle a few feathers. With Nick Knight riding his white charger defiantly on a slow turner, 29 required to avert the follow-on, four wickets remaining and rain forecast, the Championship leaders can probably rest easy.

Allan Lamb and his flock are making a habit of annoying Essex. In 1990, they set a county record by amassing 592 against them, then improved that mark to 636 here ten days later en route to a crushing victory that effectively put a final break on Essex's pursuit of the Britannic Assurance pennant.

An hour's fling yesterday morning yielded 78 runs, mostly from Curtly Ambrose and his lusty five- iron, but any fanciful notions that the Antiguan beanpole might be inspired to become the first seamer to draw blood in this match were swiftly dispelled, Paul Prichard and John Stephenson forging a forthright opening stand of 113 in 38 overs.

Prichard hobbled throughout, the legacy of an Achilles tendon injury that would have prevented his participation were it not for the fact that this would have reduced Essex to their fifth-choice captain.

He departed unluckily, Tony Penberthy leaping like some misplaced goalkeeper at square leg to reward Rob Bailey, a part-time off-spinner whose flight and bounce contrasted with the flat fare delivered by his specialist colleagues.

Jonathan Lewis, one of three uncapped members of the home middle-order, was soon taken at silly-point off the diminutive leg- spinner, Andy Roberts, scurrying into the breeze to steady rather than mesmeric effect, and when Stephenson found himself on the rough end of a hairline run-out decision, Northamptonshire were firmly in the ascendant.

Knight now joined Nasser Hussain to put on 88 in 28 overs before Lamb sprang to his right at slip to pouch a scarcely credible catch. Penberthy thus became the first non-spinner to take a wicket in the game's 199th over. Nick Cook restored the stranglehold by ousting Nadeem Shahid and Mike Garnham, but Knight, all lyrical drives and stern concentration, refused to be unseated as he trotted off into the sunset, 69 not out.