County Championship: Vasconcelos and Keogh lead Northants charge to beat Glamorgan

Ricardo Vasconcelos' highest scores have come against Glamorgan

Centuries from Ricardo Vasconcelos and Rob Keogh led Northants to a remarkable victory over Glamorgan after being set a demanding target of 355 in 79 overs.

A barrage of boundary blows saw the pair add 239 in just 45 overs.

Vasconcelos finished on 185 and Keogh made 126 as Northants romped to victory.

It was the first time Northants had scored more than 300 in a fourth innings against Glamorgan, who could not stem the tide.

The Welsh side were completely unable to find any bowling combinations to contain the run-rate after the pair came together as 82 for two.

Vasconcelos, whose previous highest score of 184 came against Glamorgan in 2019, hit 25 fours and a six to reach a career-best score while Keogh struck 19 fours.

Earlier Glamorgan cruised to 311 for five before declaring with aggressive fifties from Kiran Carlson and Chris Cooke.

Home captain Adam Rossington, with a possible finger fracture, was replaced as wicket-keeper by 20-year-old Harry Gouldstone in the morning session.

But his pain was eased by watching his batsmen pull off Northants' third-best successful run chase in their history and collect their first Championship win of the season.

In contrast, Glamorgan were left wondering how a game where they had made most of the running slipped away from them so quickly.

Northants batsman Ricardo Vasconcelos told BBC Radio Northampton:

"From the get-go, the moment they declared, we said we were going to be positive and we had a chance.

"I think Rob and I feed off each other quite nicely, a right and left hand combination gives us a few bad balls, we know each other quite well and we lived together for a while.

"We play our best cricket when we've got a bit of fight, we always believe we can win though we sometimes have a bit of a wobble

"It's a good trait to have scoring big hundreds, that's what wins matches in games like these. I'm always happy to buy a round and I don't need a career-best to do that."

Glamorgan coach Matthew Maynard told BBC Sport Wales:

"If we'd batted till lunch, we didn't believe that there was enough in the pitch to take 10 wickets in 70 overs so we set a challenging target though we knew it would be a challenge for our bowlers.

"80 for two, not bad, then the two guys played faultlessly and didn't give any opportunities. We thought the bounce may have varied a bit, it didn't apart from one.

"We could have bowled better, no doubt, we could have fielded better, no doubt. We could have easily played out a draw but I don't think anyone learns anything from that.

"We wanted to challenge our players, we came up short today, but down the road it'll serve a good purpose."