GARY Ballance is not just knocking on the England door, he is blowing its hinges off.

The Yorkshire captain was at it again in Northampton yesterday as his unbeaten 152 led the county to the brink of the Royal London one-day Cup semi-finals.

Ballance took his tally of runs for Yorkshire this summer to 934 from just 12 innings in all forms, including four centuries.

This 118-ball stunner underpinned a come-from-behind success by 164 runs against a Northants side who had Yorkshire struggling at 73-4 early on.

The Vikings later recovered to 300-6 thanks to Ballance, Matthew Waite and Adil Rashid (41).

Ballance and Waite, who hit 43, both notched career bests before Northants fell to 11-4 inside three overs of their reply on the way to 136 all out inside 29 overs.

Azeem Rafiq finished with 3-27 from four overs.

Yorkshire now top the North Group with two games remaining and are almost certain to reach the knockout stages.

And with Worcestershire losing at Lancashire yesterday, they are white hot favourites to top the group and claim a home semi.

Yorkshire’s innings was the perfect example of modern one-day cricket.

As long as you keep wickets in hand going into the last 10 overs, anything is possible.

They lost Adam Lyth, Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow (39) playing aggressively inside the first 18 overs on a sluggish pitch.

Peter Handscomb was also lbw to former Yorkshire seamer Ben Sanderson, who had bowled Root as he charged down to smash one over long-on.

Ballance and Waite then shared 105 inside 21 overs for the fifth wicket before the skipper added a blistering 122 inside 12 overs for the sixth with Rashid.

Ballance hit his three sixes as Yorkshire scored 113 in the last 10 overs, including 64 in the last five as Northants looked ragged having let a trio of chances slip.

Waite survived a missed stumping on seven off left-arm spinner Graeme White before Ballance handed the toughest of chances to Sanderson at deep square-leg on 133.

The drama continued early in the Northants innings as they lost four wickets in eight balls to Ben Coad and former Steelback David Willey to all but hand the game to the visitors.

Coad had Josh Cobb caught behind and Richard Levi caught at deep square-leg in the second over before Willey bowled Ben Duckett and trapped Rob Newton lbw in the next.

Adam Rossington (31) and Alex Wakely shared 50 for the fifth wicket, but it could not dent Yorkshire’s dominance as Liam Plunkett had the former caught behind down leg in the 15th.

Rashid bowled Wakely in the 18th as Northants fell to 77-6.

Rory Kleinveldt and White briefly counter-attacked in a seventh-wicket stand of 46, but Rafiq and Rashid mopped up the tail.