In-form Breetkze so happy to contribute to a winning cause for Steelbacks

Breetzke continued his fine form by opening with 52 from 43 balls on a tough pitch.

The Steelbacks made their way to 143 for six, having opted to bat after winning the toss.

And John Sadler's side backed up their decision by limiting the Rapids to 132 for seven, ensuring they headed back to Northampton with an 11-run Vitality T20 Blast win to their name.

It was in contrast to two days earlier, when Breetzke made a superb 94 from 54 balls only to see Derbyshire Falcons beat the Steelbacks by 24 runs on the DLS Method.

“Reading conditions in England is important and sometimes you come up on a belter of a wicket and the next week you come up on a wicket like this," Breetzke said after the win at Worcestershire.

“Sometimes I just have to play conditions, which is best for the team, and luckily we came out on top.

“From the first three overs, we said we wanted to get 150-160. We got just below that but I think we bowled really well which helped us over the line.

“It is always nice contributing to a team. It was bitter-sweet last game, getting 90 but losing on DLM to Derbyshire, but hopefully I can just carry on contributing.

“I don’t know when that first 100 is going to come. Hopefully it will be in this competition which will be awesome.

“We’ve put ourselves in a good position and the nice thing is we are winning those tight games.”

Worcestershire assistant head coach Kadeer Ali said: “It was quite disappointing to be honest.

"Over the last three games, we had some close games which we deserved to get over the line.

“But today Northamptonshire outplayed us if I’m honest. They used the conditions better than we did and it was a disappointing result for us.

“I think we were a little bit sloppy in the field. We bowled pretty nicely and we conceded six to eight runs through misfields and in T20 cricket four to six runs can cost you the game.

“We’ve lost games recently by that margin and losing six runs in the field today wasn’t great.

"With the bat, again being three down in the powerplay, we’ve done that quite regularly in this competition.

“We tried to change it at the top of the order a little bit and especially the wicket at New Road has done a little bit at the top for both sides.

“We tried to be a bit more solid at the top and get a bit of a platform but unfortunately that hasn’t worked for us today."