County Championship: Luke Procter hits ton for Northants

Northamptonshire captain Luke Procter marshalled his side’s fightback in their County Championship game against Yorkshire with a tenacious unbeaten century – his first in almost two years.

Procter, who had already passed 50 five times this season without converting any into hundreds, sparked Northamptonshire’s recovery from 181-7 on day two at Wantage Road.

The skipper finished 116 not out, sharing stands of 50 and 58 respectively with tailenders Ben Sanderson (25) and Jack White (21) to ensure the home side totalled 301, a deficit of 61 on Yorkshire’s first-innings 362.

Sri Lanka international left-armer Vishwa Fernando took 4-48 on debut for the visitors, who lost nightwatch Dom Leech to the final ball of the day without extending their lead any further.

Yorkshire began the day on 312-7 in the first innings and launched an early assault to secure another batting bonus point with Jordan Thompson bringing up his first half-century of the season.

The partnership between Thompson (53) and Matthew Revis (27) reached 80 before the last three White Rose wickets went down in the space of nine balls.

Ricardo Vasconcelos and Emilio Gay shared lively opening stand of 56 as Northamptonshire started their reply.

Gay was out for 32, prodding to second slip but – after a brief but bizarre stoppage when a swarm of wasps descended, prompting several fielders to fling themselves full-length on the turf – Northamptonshire reached lunch at 84-1.

However, Vasconcelos fell soon after the interval, with wicketkeeper Jonny Tattersall taking a skier to give Fernando his 300th first-class wicket and Yorkshire looked very much in the ascendancy as Karun Nair, George Bartlett, Keogh, Lewis McManus and Justin Broad came and went to leave the hosts on 181-7.

But Procter joined forces with Sanderson to shepherd his side past the follow-on target before Yorkshire wrapped up the home side’s innings just before the close.