One Day Cup: Zaib spins Northamptonshire to win over Glamorgan

Saif Zaib celebrates taking the wicket of Glamorgan's Andrew Salter

Saif Zaib's career-best four for 23 proved crucial for Northamptonshire as they strolled to a six-wicket victory over Glamorgan in the One-Day Cup.

The visitors' 221, with David Lloyd's 65 the top score, never looked enough after they were reduced to 22-4.

Ricardo Vasconcelos (104) and Emilio Gay (81) made light work of the chase with a stand of 188.

Kiran Carlson's occasional off-spin remarkably claimed four wickets but it came too late to affect the result.

Both counties have two wins from their first four matches.

Glamorgan's decision to bat first looked reasonable on a used wicket, but Ben Sanderson and Nathan Buck blew away the top order with two wickets each to leave the visitors reeling in what proved to be a one-sided game.

Lloyd and Joe Cooke (39) seemed to have got Glamorgan off the rocks with a stand of 94, Lloyd working his way out of a difficult spell of form.

Zaib, who had briefly been called up for franchise duty with Northern Superchargers without playing, was the third spinner used but took control in an unchanged spell as he removed both men in successive overs and chipped away at the lower order.

Andrew Salter (20), Tom Cullen (24), and Dan Douthwaite (30 not out) got Glamorgan past 200 but they did not have enough wickets in hand to accelerate as James Sales and Sanderson (3-17) claimed the last two.

Northants got off to a flying start as Gay came out blazing and Vasconcelos discovered his missing touch with little pressure from the depleted Glamorgan attack in the scorching conditions.

Gay hammered what was technically a return chance back to Salter on 29, but the pair rattled along at better than a run a ball as they reached 157 without loss by the halfway mark, setting a new limited-overs record for Northants against Glamorgan.

Vasconcelos finished with 17 boundaries and Gay 12 as Northants took full advantage of the chance to improve their net run-rate, but both men fell just short of career bests.

Carlson, who claimed five wickets on his first-class debut at Northampton in 2016 but has bowled little since, dismissed both men and added the scalps of New Zealand's Will Young and Zaib.

It came too late to prompt a repeat of Northants' late jitters in losing away to Hampshire in their previous game, as Rob Keogh and Lewis MacManus saw them home with 14.1 overs to spare.

They travel to Kent on on Sunday while Glamorgan are away to Essex.

Northants batter Ricardo Vasconcelos told BBC Radio Northampton:

"It's been a long season and tough for me personally but I knew I had the backing of the changing-room and coaches. it was going to come eventually and thankfully it came today, hopefully there's still time in the season to make it a good one and I can kick on.

"I felt like I was batting fairly well but managing to get myself out, it was more a mental thing as I had a tough time with the captaincy (stepping down) and I wasn't enjoying playing as much, but I've come back refreshed.

"The bowlers have been great in the last two games, to bowl teams out for 200 makes life easier as a batter, Sanderson doing Sando things, and Saif has really bowled well and deserves a lot of credit."

Glamorgan coach David Harrison told BBC Sport Wales:

"We didn't get going with the bat after losing early wickets, when you're 20-odd for four you don't win many games. We did OK to get up to a reasonable score but we got out when we had a chance of getting partnerships and it was never enough.

"A reasonably competitive score would have been 275-280 but the weay they came out with the bat, they got a good powerplay and we didn't hit the top of the stumps as we'd planned to in the first ten overs.

"There's consolation in seeing Lloydy back in the runs though he'll be disappointed not to kick on, and Kiran's been working hard on his bowling, it must be something about Northampton because he got five here a few years ago.

"But we weren't good enough with bat or ball, we need a reaction for Sunday. (Spinner) Prem Sisodiya is here with us if we need to play him, and (batter) Tom Bevan is very close, he's had a fantastic season in the seconds and has earned the right to play."