ZIMBABWE international cricket all-rounder Elton Chigumbura made a dream debut in the English County Championship when he grabbed four wickets to help Northamptonshire take full control in a four-day match against Division Two leaders Glamorgan.

Chigumbura had earlier contributed 44 runs to Northants’ first innings score of 494 and followed up his good performance when he sliced through Glamorgan’s lower order.

According to the club’s website, Chigumbura was the star for the Steelbacks as Glamorgan were dismissed for 207 to hand Northamptonshire an overnight lead of 287 runs going into the third day yesterday. The Zimbabwe captain’s eight overs went for 67 runs and was helped by David Lucas who struck three times on his return from injury to give Northants complete control.

South African Nicky Boje took one wicket while Jack Brooks claimed the other two. Glamorgan had a bad start and with the scores on 108/5, Chigumbura took four wickets in succession as he claimed the scalps of Mark Wallace (21), James Harris (8) Dean Cosker (0) and David Harrison (18) to leave their opponents hapless at 152/9.

His first wicket came when Wallace mistimed a drive and was caught by ex-captain Boje at mid on.

Harris stayed with Jim Allenby for a while before Chigumbura struck twice in two balls. Chigumbura trapped Harris lbw and then followed it up with an in-swinging yorker that ripped through Cosker's defences and rearranged his stumps to leave Glamorgan in disarray on 122-8. Harrison then helped Allenby take the score past 150 before he became Chigumbura’s fourth victim.

Allenby was the only batsman to provide some form of resistance with an unbeaten 59 for Glamorgan.

The Division Two leaders were still batting at 199/2 in their second innings at the time of going to press yesterday.

Chigumbura, who was signed by the Steelbacks in March as one of their overseas players, said he would like to continue with the good form he enjoyed at home before he ventured into the English county cricket. The hard-hitting former Mashonaland Eagles skipper got a good batting warm-up in a Twenty20 match against Pakistan last week scoring an unbeaten 58 from 45 balls, albeit in a losing cause.

Northants lost the match by six wickets.

Northamptonshire are on sixth position on the LV County Championship Division Two table.