Northampton, July 25: Somerset lost 18 wickets in a single day as Northants boosted their promotion prospects with a comprehensive victory. Off-spinner Jason Brown was the match-winner with second innings figures of 6-42, but Andre Nel, Ben Phillips and Adam Shantry all played their part in hastening Somerset's decline.
The visitors resumed on 26-2 and lost their last eight first innings wickets in just 28 overs.
Jamie Cox's 22 proved to be the top score as Nel took 3-51 and youngster Shantry dismissed Ian Blackwell, Keith Dutch and Nixon McLean to finish with 3-8.
Mike Hussey enforced the follow-on and Phillips removed the top order to reduce Somerset to 32-3.

Michael Burns (55) and Blackwell (40) put on 83 for the fifth wicket, but once Blackwell had been dismissed by Nel, Brown swept through the tail with the last six wickets going down for only 26 runs.

Pitch inspector Peter Walker afterwards confirmed that although the picth was, in his opinion, "below average", he would not be recommending to docking of any points.

"It was a lot of wickets to fall in a day......but you had one side on the top of their form and another at the bottom of theirs," he said

Bureau Report.