County Championship: Sanderson bowls Northants to win over Glamorgan

Northants celebrate the fall of a Glamorgan wicket

Seamer Ben Sanderson destroyed Glamorgan with a career-best 7-22 as Northants cruised to a crushing 251-run victory at St Helen's.

Sanderson proved unplayable with a fine display of swing bowling to earn the visitors their first Championship win of the season.

Set 347 to win, Glamorgan slipped to 12-4 and never showed the application to survive as they were all out for 95.

Sanderson also picked up 10 wickets in a match for the first time.

Northants might have won even sooner if they had not dropped a series of slip catches.

Only three players reached double figures, Mark Wallace with a gritty 28 not out and Aneurin Donald the joint top-scorers, while there were four ducks in a miserable home display in the Swansea sunshine.

A Championship-best 5-61 from Timm van der Gugten was the sole high point of the final day for Glamorgan, whose seamer Ruaidhri Smith will miss four to six weeks with a side strain.

Both sides are involved in T20 Blast quarter-finals with Northants taking on Middlesex on Tuesday, 9 August and Glamorgan facing Yorkshire on Thursday, 11 August.

Glamorgan head coach Robert Croft told BBC Wales Sport:

"I thought the pitch seamed around quite a lot today and their boys bowled really well today, straight, really accurately and consistently- every good ball we edged, or it broke our defences so it was a perfect storm.

"We are disappointed but we knew we'd rested a few players, we knew there was a risk, but we've also learned about some young players.

"It was exciting to see young debutant Lukas Carey doing well and Nick Selman with a fantastic hundred.

"We've lost this game but we've had an opportunity to rest some players (for the T20) who hopefully will be fresh for Thursday, and to see what some of our younger players have."

Northants bowler Ben Sanderson told BBC Radio Northampton:

"I felt really good, just ran in and seemed to do the right things, hit the right areas and it's easy on days like that.

"Conditions weren't helping with the sunshine so we worked really hard on the ball and kept it in good condition, credit to the boys.

"To come here and get the wickets is brilliant for me, a real confidence-booster, and we've put in a performance that should carry us on for the rest of the season.

"We played well at Arundel and we've played some good cricket in this comp but not had the luck until today."