Steelbacks eager to give supporters something to shout about

Northants have lost all six of their home games in the Vitality Blast this season, with the most recent defeat coming against Durham Jets last Friday.

Now they square up to a Yorkshire Vikings side who still harbour hopes of qualifying from the North Group.

And Ripley is eager for Northants to dent those chances by delivering for their own supporters, even though he has one eye on the County Championship clash with Middlesex which starts in Northampton on Sunday.

"It would be great to put on a show and I still feel we've got players who are capable of doing that," said Ripley, whose side finish their T20 campaign at Leicestershire Foxes tomorrow night.

"But we've also got to be realistic and we've got Championship cricket here on Sunday and we want to get up that table.

"We'll look at these two games and try to get a balance in signing off well in this comp as well as giving ourselves the best chance to start well on Sunday in that Championship game.

"We'll mull it over and see how we go.

"We've been training with red balls and white balls and we'll top up before each game.

"We've hedged our bets a little bit."