MATCH PREVIEW: Northants Steelbacks v Lancashire Lightning
Following a week’s break for Championship action, Lancashire return to concentrate on the Vitality Blast looking to get back on the roll they were on at the start of the competition.
Northamptonshire Steelbacks v Lancashire Lightning
Vitality Blast, North Group
Friday June 16, 2023, 6.30pm
Wantage Road
Lancashire won the first three North Group games before losing the next four. Thankfully, last time out, a win against Worcestershire at Blackpool arrested the slide, and momentum was built with a midweek County Championship win over Hampshire at Southport.
The Lightning may sit outside the top four places - in sixth on eight points - but the table is log-jammed and there is plenty of room for manoeuvre with six matches remaining.
Only four points separate leaders Nottinghamshire on 12 from Lancashire.
Northamptonshire currently sit second-bottom with three wins and six points from eight games.
This is the first of three key games in five days up until next Tuesday.
Opponents:
Northamptonshire, who narrowly missed out on quarter-final qualification in the 2022 Blast with six wins from 14, are having to contend with a difficult season at present.
Added to their mixed start in the Blast, they sit bottom of the Championship Division One table with only one win from six matches under Luke Procter’s captaincy.
In the Blast, they are also under new leadership. All-rounder David Willey has taken over as their T20 skipper having returned home from Yorkshire over the winter.
Willey’s career has followed a specialist short-form route in recent years, be it as a fringe player for England or at the IPL. He played for Royal Challengers Bangalore earlier this year.
The Steelbacks have two veteran Australian overseas players in their ranks for this competition, with destructive opener Chris Lynn joined by skilful seamer AJ Tye.
Both hold royalty status in the Big Bash League Down Under, with Tye a serial champion in the colours of Perth Scorchers.
Lynn is their leading run-scorer so far with 210 runs, but the likes of Willey, Saif Zaib and Ricardo Vasconcelos aren’t far behind the Queenslander.
With the ball, left-arm wrist spinner Freddie Heldreich is having a fine competition with 14 wickets to his name.
Opposing player to watch:
We’re going to take a look at wrist spinner Freddie Heldreich, a 21-year-old from Ipswich who is having a fine breakthrough Blast campaign for Northamptonshire.
He is amongst the top five leading wicket-takers in the competition with 14.
This is not his debut season, but it is definitely the one which has seen him catch the eye. For example, he has already matched the haul of wickets he claimed in the whole of last season’s competition.
Heldreich claimed a career best 4-27 in a defeat to Birmingham at Edgbaston last time out.
He made his T20 debut for Northants in 2021 having come through the Academy at Wantage Road and previously played National Counties Cricket for Suffolk.
He is a tall bowler with a languid approach to the crease and will certainly go places - given his uniqueness - if he continues this kind of early season form.
Heldreich is yet to make a four-day appearance for his county.
Previous meeting:
The two counties shared a win apiece in last season’s Blast, Lancashire winning by two wickets at Emirates Old Trafford in early June before losing by seven wickets at Wantage Road a fortnight later.
In the latter, captain Dane Vilas top-scored with 38 as the Lightning posted 153-7 having elected to bat.
In reply, Northants killed the game pretty quickly. Openers Emilio Gay and Ben Curran, who went on to make 50, shared 39 inside four overs for the first wicket.
The Steelbacks scored at close to 10 runs per over throughout the chase, completing it inside 17 overs for the loss of three wickets to Danny Lamb, Matthew Parkinson and Tim David.
Josh Cobb also made 57 for the hosts.
What they said:
Jos Buttler believes the one of the key things to success for a side in T20 cricket is to keep calm and stay true to your beliefs amidst what can at times be mayhem.
Lancashire have had a start to the competition which kind of falls into that category. They won their first three games to sit top of the North Group before losing the next four to slide down the table.
Thankfully a Buttler half-century helped arrest that slide last time out against Worcestershire at Blackpool a week ago yesterday.
The England white ball captain said: “You’re going to win and lose games of cricket, but it’s important to commit to a style or something that serves you well.
“There’s no good way to lose at all, but there are certain things you can control that you want to make sure even if you are losing, you’re sticking to.
“It’s easy to say the right things when you’re winning, but can you still stick to them and believe them when you’re losing.
“We do get caught up in the results sometimes even though you don’t have full ownership over them.”
How’s Stat:
The Lightning are bidding for their first away win of this season’s Blast. They have won three games at home added to Derbyshire at Edgbaston in Blast Off, which goes down in the club's records as a neutral venue. All four defeats have come away.