Warwickshire had to dig themselves out of a hole to achieve a victory target of only 159 after Northants' seamer Mike Strong scattered their upper batting with a spell of three wickets without cost in only eight balls.

Warwickshire, bidding to close in on the top three, were in urgent need of retrenchment at 18-3 after five overs and it took 20 overs of restraint and selectivity from Nick Knight and Dominic Ostler, who shared a stand worth 76, to keep them on track against persevering Northants' bowling.

The dismissal of Knight, caught on the long-off boundary after scoring 47 off 87 balls, with seven fours, raised Northants' hopes again but Ostler found another resourceful partner in skipper Mike Powell in a fifth-wicket stand which yielded 52 in 10 overs.

Both men perished with only 13 runs needed for victory, Ostler hitting six fours in his 49 off 83 balls, but Warwickshire still had 5.4 overs to spare in claiming the points needed to keep them in touch with the top three in Division One.

Northants, who won the toss and batted first on an awkward pitch which made strokeplay difficult, were heavily reliant on a painstaking innings of 80 not out off 106 balls from Richard Warren and even he needed a fair bit of luck, three of his eight boundaries coming off mishits.

Left-arm-seamer Neil Carter broke through with two early wickets and paceman Charlie Dagnall tightened the screw by conceding only 19 runs in his nine-over allocation but Warren held things together as Dougie Brown and Mo Sheikh kept wickets tumbling at the other end.

The importance of Warren's contribution could be judged by the fact that no other batsman scored more than 16 and there were only ten boundaries in the whole innings.

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