Northants are on the brink of missing out of qualification for the 2025 T20 Blast knockout stages, despite winning the first six of their games in the competition.
Northants currently sit in fifth place in the North group, one place outside of the qualifying positions for the quarter-finals. They've slipped out of the top four positions after losing their last five matches, with their last win in the competition now a month ago, when they beat Birmingham Bears by 10 runs.
Northants continue losing streak with Leicestershire loss
The club's losing streak was extended last night (July 10) when they were comprehensively beaten by Leicestershire. Having been put into bat first, Northants lost their first wicket off the second ball of the game, when Tim Robinson was dismissed by Logan van Beek. Despite a half-century from Ravi Bopara, they suffered a mid-innings collapse lost five wickets in as many overs, slipping from 106-2 to 129-7. A 17-ball 22 from Luke Procter helped them to a total of 171-7.
In response, Leicestershire knocked off the target with relative ease, even after losing Rishi Patel in the opening over of the chase. Sol Budinger scored 40 off 22 balls before England all-rounder Rehan Ahmed reached an unbeaten half-century to seal the win with 23 balls to spare.
Match 94, Leicestershire vs Northamptonshire
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From six consecutive wins to five consecutive losses
Northants' run of losses is in stark contrast to the start of their campaign. They won their opening six matches of the competition, and were in prime spot for a home quarter final. Their wins were underpinned by a standout campaign from Ben Sanderson, who still leads the way on the wicket-taking front in the competition. Sanderson took the third-best ever figures in the competition of 6-8 in Northants' win over Worcestershire last month, with his figures including a hat-trick.
Despite slipping out of the qualification positions for the knockout rounds, Northants still have a decent chance of making the quarter finals. The group is currently on a knife edge, with Northants one of three teams tied on 24 points. The two teams with more points are both on 28 points, although both of those teams (Lancashire and Durham) have a game in hand. The closest sides below Northants in the table are both tied on 20 points, while there's a bigger gap to bottom-placed Derbyshire and Yorkshire, who have 12 points.
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