Close, day three: Middlesex 30-1 & 488-9d lead Northants 384 by 134 runs
Middlesex’s hopes of forcing victory faded after a century from Steven Crook enabled the visitors to avoid the follow-on.
With Northants wobbling on 168-6 just after lunch, still 320 runs behind, Crook (131) and Andrew Hall (75) frustrated the Middlesex with a seventh-wicket stand of 144.
Steven Finn, who took 4-110, ended the partnership and Ravi Patel later had Crook stumped as Northants, down a man through injury, were bowled out for 384.
That gave Middlesex a first innings lead of 104, which they extended to 134 by the close, for the loss of Chris Rogers.
However, they will have to bat and bowl extremely well on the final day to have any chance of forcing a result in their favour.
Early in the afternoon session, they looked on course for victory when they had Northants six down – effectively seven down with Rob Keogh unable to bat due to a broken finger sustained in the field on day one.
Middlesex had taken two wickets inside the first hour, with Toby Roland-Jones trapping Rob Newton lbw and Finn executing a fine return catch off his own bowling to remove wicket-keeper Ben Duckett.
Northants reached lunch on 165-5, the innings held together by James Kettleborough, who was 71 not out.
However, he perished just after the interval, caught by Eoin Morgan off Finn, to leave Northants on 168-6 – needing to double their score just to make Middlesex bat again.
But Hall and Crook combined to thwarted the bowlers, with boundaries coming thick and fast, and their stunning partnership took the score up to 312-6 at tea.
Hall was the more watchful of the pair, scoring 75 from 151 balls, but he was castled by Finn with the third ball after the break.
Crook, however, blasted 23 fours and scored 131 off just 124 deliveries to help Northants avoid the follow-on.
His innings was ended when he tried one shot too many and was stumped and the ninth, and final, wicket came not long afterwards.
Middlesex lost Rogers for 18 but debutant Nick Gubbins and Dawid Malan survived to stumps as Middlesex closed on 30-1.
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This post was last modified on 01/07/2014