After winning the toss, the visitors were strongly-placed at 292 for five when heavy rain arrived to wipe out the day's last 24 overs.

Northamptonshire's only regret against an innocuous-looking bowling attack was that, while three of their top five passed 50, none went on to make a century and play a really big innings.

Instead, all perished carelessly before they reached 75.

Warwickshire welcomed back opening bowlers Chris Martin and Chris Woakes from injury and England Under-21 duty respectively.

But they made no impression after the visitors won the toss and chose to bat.

Niall O'Brien and Stephen Peters added 96 in 29 overs and looked largely untroubled before both surprisingly perished in the last 10 minutes before lunch.

Ian Salisbury was introduced as the sixth bowler and his eighth ball was lifted straight to deep mid-wicket by O'Brien.

Woakes took the catch and the former Kent man departed for 48 from 96
balls with five fours.

If O'Brien was kicking himself back to the pavilion, Peters was no less so moments later.

To the penultimate ball before lunch, he shuffled out of his ground and
Salisbury turned one past him and allow Tony Forst to celebrate his 100th first-class match with his 17th career stumping.

When, in the sixth over after lunch, Salisbury trapped David Sales lbw with a googly, the spinner had 3-9 in 5.1 overs and the visitors were wobbling on 129 for three.

But Rob White and Rikki Wessels stopped the rot.

Voracious on anything loose, White galloped to 50 from 51 balls and promptly celebrated with 10 from two balls off Salisbury.

The fourth-wicket pair added 83 in 19 overs but just as they were starting to take a firm grip on the game, for the second time in the day, they lost two quickfire wickets in careless fashion.

White had reached 73 with nine fours and three sixes) when he top-edged a sweep at Salisbury to short fine leg just before tea.

Just after the interval, Neil Carter dropped short and Wessels, going for his second six, instead only top-edged his pull to Navdeep Poonia on the deep mid-wicket boundary.

Lance Klusener (35no) and Nicky Boje (11no) then added 32 for the sixth wicket before the deluge arrived.