County Championship: Hampshire beat Northants to take the County Championship lead

LV= County Championship Division One, The Ageas Bowl (day four): Hampshire 400-9 Dec: Donald 94, Organ 71; Sanderson 3-68Northants 175 & 221: Gay 74; Abbas 4-32Hampshire (24 pts) beat Northants (3 pts) from one inning and four runsScorecard

Barker moved to 49 wickets for the season as he took 3 -63, to go with another three-for in the first innings, while Pakistani fast bowler Abbas claimed 4-32.

Hampshire, who took all the runs in the match to lead Surrey by eight to the summit, took the necessary seven wickets from 27 overs after the morning was washed out and the elements took them away in the 'afternoon.

Hampshire faced the final day without Kyle Abbott, the top wicket taker in the first division, injured in the lower leg, suffered the previous evening.< /p>

James Fuller had joked that Hampshire players will be helping pitch staff with "towels and sponges" to help with drying, having already seen 90 overs dropped in the three early days.

The ever-popular Aneurin Donald took this literally as he held a broom for sweeping water from covers.

His efforts and those of Simon Lee's usual crew were rewarded with a 1.30pm BST start, with 59 overs scheduled.

Barker thanked them after 12 balls by hitting Rob Keogh in front with a ball that went low. It was a theme and something that Josh Cobb tried to deny the risk of being pinned coming out of his stump.

It saved him the first time from Abbas but the second time , he didn't slide far enough and was gone.

Cobb wouldn't have been too happy to the weird situation around his wicket. Him and Ricardo...