Lehmann wary of Durham 'quality' as Steelbacks target a magnificent seven under the Friday night lights

David Willey's side host Durham at Wantage Road (start 6.30pm), aiming to maintain their sizzling start to the T20 summer that has seen them win their opening six matches.

The latest triumph was Wednesday's dramatic 10-run win over Birmingham Bears, but the tough tests keep coming for head coach Darren Lehmann and his players as they prepare to host a strong Durham side.

England pace bowler Matthew Potts is set to make his first T20 appearance of the summer after playing for England in their white ball series' wins over West Indies, while the north east side also have former Steelbacks ace Jimmy Neesham in their ranks.

Other players to look out for are the likes of Neesham's fellow New Zealander Zak Foulkes, Colin Ackermann, former England opener Alex Lees, and Graham Clark, who in 2023 hit a brilliant unbeaten century as his side beat the Steelbacks by 10 wickets at the County Ground.

The Steelbacks have unsurprisingly named an unchanged squad for the Friday night clash, but Lehmann knows his team cannot afford to drop their standards.

"Durham are a quality side, but there are a lot of good sides," said the Australian. "There are 18 quality counties playing in the Blast, with some good overseas players and some good young players, and I have seen that around the country so far. It is a tight group.

"Durham is going to be another challenge in itself and we are going to have to play well.

"They are more of a pace attack, although they do open with a spinner, so we will have to just work through that and play as we are playing now.

"We can hopefully work our magic with the bat and post another total, and if we happen to bowl first then we bowl really well against their quality batting line-up."

Lehmann was very happy with his side's performance against the Bears, feeling it may be the best of their six wins so far.

"I have been really proud of the past couple of games, but Wednesday in particular because we had to fight back," said the head coach.

"We have been in control of most games, as such, but that one we really had to fight back to win it, which was a bit like at Derby which was one of those games as well.

"That is a sign of the side maturing I suppose, and not panicking too much, although we have to improve our over-rate, because we keep having to have an extra fielder in, but that is something we will work on."

Durham currently sit fifth in the North Group table having won two and lost two of their four matches to date.

Northants Steelbacks squad v Durham: David Willey, George Bartlett, Ravi Bopara, Matt Breetzke, Justin Broad, Liam Guthrie, Dom Leech, Lewis McManus, Lloyd Pope, Luke Procter, Ben Sanderson, George Scrimshaw, Ricardo Vasconcelos, Saif Zaib

Durham squad v Northants: Colin Ackermann, Kasey Aldridge, Graham Clark, Bas de Leede, Zak Foulkes, Alex Lees, Jimmy Neesham, Callum Parkinson, Matthew Potts, Ben Raine, Will Rhodes, Ollie Robinson, Nathan Sowter