Northants boss Ripley eager for good run to continue against Outlaws

Ripley’s men are now fourth in the NatWest T20 Blast North Group following their dramatic two-run win at Worcestershire Rapids on Friday night.

It was their fourth success in five T20 matches and they have not been beaten since losing to the Rapids in the third round of fixtures.

A win at Trent Bridge this afternoon (2.30pm start) would see the Steelbacks move into the top two, but Ripley refuses to worry about the standings with six games to go.

He said: “Nottinghamshire are opposition we haven’t done that well against in my time as coach and today would be a great time to start.

“Things change very quickly in the T20.

“We found ourselves with three defeats at the start, but we talked about getting momentum at the right time and we’re unbeaten in five games.

“We’ve won four of them and we probably would have won the other one (at Leicestershire) if we’d had another 10 minutes.

“That propels you up the league and if we can beat Nottingham we will start looking at keeping this run going and getting a top-two finish and home quarter-final.

“But if we lose our next two, someone else has taken our spot.

“It’s too early to start looking and I haven’t looked much myself.

“When it gets to the final couple of games I’ll be having a look round seeing who we want to win and who we want to lose, but you’ve got to look after your own matches.”