Lancashire121 for 1 (Wells 61*, Jennings 55) trail Northamptonshire 342 (Gay 144, Procter 75, Balderson 3-44, Morley 3-87) by 221 runs

Supporters tend to believe that clubs are relegated because of alarming collapses or humiliating defeats. Perhaps they are right. But the source of poor seasons can also be found on rain-shortened days like this with the Northamptonshire players sitting in the away dressing-room and wondering how a morning that began with their star in the ascendant has seemingly ended with Lancashire's top order playing competently on a pitch that nonetheless looks as if it will rag every which way come Friday afternoon.

To a degree, the morning's play exemplified the problems that have bedevilled Northamptonshire's Championship cricket this season. Resuming on 302 for 5 and therefore presented with a perfect platform from which to build an imposing first-innings score in excess of 400, they lost their last five wickets for 40 runs. And what would have been particularly concerning to their head coach John Sadler was that only James Sales, who was bowled by a fine ball from Jack Morley, seemed powerless to avoid his fate. The other four batters were complicit in their downfalls.

The final four wickets were all taken by the spinners in the space of 28 balls and at a cost of 13 runs. Nighwatcher Dominic Leech was stumped by Phil Salt off Morley for 13; Lewis McManus, having slog-swept Morley for a fine six, stuck one up the chimney off Tom Hartley and Tom Bailey ran round to take a fine catch; and the innings ended when Jack White attempted a reverse sweep off Hartley but only gloved a catch to Salt.

Two of the five wickets to fall had been those of tailenders but the cumulative impression was that an opportunity had been tossed aside. Lancashire's batsmen have not so far been so profligate.

"Yesterday was such a good day but it only counted if we backed it up today, so it's a bit frustrating that we've gone from 266 for 3 to 342 all out," said Sadler. "We should be sitting here with 400 on the board. If we'd done that, it means we could have kept catchers in a little bit longer, the spinners could have had an extra man round the bat and we could have been a little more attacking. So as good a score as 342 is, we should be sitting here with a four in front of it, not a three."

But these are difficult weeks at Lancashire, too. Failure to reach the Vitality Blast Finals Day and the achievement of nothing more than a mid-table position in Division One were plainly not what the coaching staff envisaged when they planned the season. On top of which, three locally developed players, Matthew Parkinson, Danny Lamb and Rob Jones, have opted to join other counties in the past month or so, leaving critics of the club to bemoan the loss of cricketers to whom they felt an abiding attachment.

To a degree, the openers are peas in a pod, although given that both are 6ft 4ins tall, maybe ripe runner beans would be a more apt metaphor. Both hit strongly square of the wicket on both the off and on sides and both whack it strongly down the ground. Their opening partnership of 114 is nothing like their best for Lancashire - they belted Somerset's attack for 154 in only 36.1 overs in April - but it reinforced the momentum of the contest in the home side's favour. Northamptonshire's problems were compounded when they dropped Jennings on 17, Justin Broad putting him down at third slip off Jack White.

Jennings is normally ruthless in capitalising on such reprieves but he was leg before wicket for 55 when attempting to reverse-sweep Saif Zaib's third ball of the innings. Four overs later the rain drifted in from the west and never let up.