Lehmann looking on the bright side in wake of One Day Cup loss to Gloucestershire
Head coach Darren Lehmann felt Northants Steelbacks' performance in their three-wicket defeat at Gloucestershire on Tuesday pretty much summed up the team's overall performance in this season's Metro Bank One Day Cup.
The County travelled to Cheltenham still in with a slim chance of reaching Friday's quarter-finals, but their hopes were dashed as they slipped to defeat, with the home side getting over the line with four balls to spare.
As it transpired, a win wouldn't have been enough for the Steelbacks anyway as both Notts Outlaws and Lancashire won their games to secure the two qualification places below Group A winners Leicestershire Foxes.
The loss actually saw the Steelbacks finish seventh out of nine teams, but their record of three wins out of eight matches was an improvement on the solitary win recorded in 2025.
Already shorn of seven players to The Hundred and other key men through injury, the County really were down to bare bones at Cheltenham, with leg-spinner Yuzi Chahal unavailable and Lewis McManus rested - Stuart van der Merwe taking over the behind the stumps.
Nathan McSweeney hit 79 and George Bartlett 75 - the in-form duo both scoring their sixth half-centuries of the campaign - as the Steelbacks were bowled out for 308 in just 46.4 overs.
The Steelbacks then saw that total overhauled in the final over of the match, with Joseph Eckland seeing his side home with an unbeaten 68.
There were three wickets for Dom Leach and two for Luke Procter, but it wasn't enough to stop Gloucestershire calling a halt to a run of five straight defeats at the hands of Northants already this summer.
And although disappointed to lose, and to go out of the tournament, Lehmann was looking on the bright side.
"There are a lot more positives this year," Lehmann told BBC Northampton.
"We were competitive in every game, which is a plus, but we were also 20 or 30 short in every game, and Tuesday was probably a case in point.
"We missed out on 20 balls, so if you do that then more often than not you are going to lose some games.
"But I liked our intent, and we ended up with 308, and if we had batters in at the end we would have probably hit 360 and the game would have been dead and buried, so for us it is a great learning curve.
"I thought Gloucestershire played really well, and bowled well."
Northants now switch their attention to red ball cricket and trying to win promotion from Rothesay County Championship Division Two.
They have six four-day matches remaining, starting with a trip to Old Trafford to play Lancashire next Thursday (August 20).