Steelbacks coach Lehmann in a rush to book Vitality Blast last-eight spot

A big crowd is expected at Wantage Road as leaders Steelbacks take on second-placed Lightning, with Northants knowing a win will see them go eight points clear of their rivals.

It was a dream start to the competition for the Steelbacks as they claimed six straight wins, but they then lost two on the spin on home soil ahead of the mini two-week break for the County Championship.

And Lehmann is keen to get back to winning ways as quickly as possible, and securing that place in the knockout stages.

"You want to qualify as soon as you can to make sure you are there, as you can then start working on your plans for the quarter-finals," the Australian told SteelbacksTV.

"But you have to go get there, so we still have to win a couple of games, and we want to continue with how we have been playing.

"All the games have been close, even the ones we lost, so we have to just try and be 20 per cent better all the time, and if we try and do that we will be fine.

"If you play good cricket then the results will look after themselves, but we want to qualify.

"Every team, every county around the country wants to do that, and that is the first objective.

"Over the past couple of months we have played some decent cricket, but this is a new block of six games and we have to play well from the start."

Northants' four-day clash with Kent went down to the final ball on Wednesday afternoon, and they then travelled straight home and were back at Wantage Road on Thursday for some white ball practice.

Saif Zaib, Ricardo Vasconcelos, Justin Broad, Lewis McManus and Luke Procter are all going to back out there and involved against Lightning, but key for Lehmann is the fact the Steelbacks' bowling attack will be nice and fresh.

Ben Sanderson returns to the squad after having two weeks off, and it's the same for David Willey, George Scrimshaw and Ravi Bopara, with leg-spinner Lloyd Pope also having had a week off after playing in the Championship against Middlesex.

"Lancashire are a quality side, they have some big-hitters, so it is going be an entertaining game," said Lehmann.

"It's a quick turnaround for our boys, but we have some blokes who are fresh and ready to go, so that's good.

"We had a different set up at Kent, we had Liam Guthrie, Dom Leech and Chahal, so for us that's a bit better as we had a different bowling attack for the four-day game.

"That means our T20 attack is all fresh and ready to go, so that gives us a good lead into this next block of six games, and other teams might not have that advantage."

New Zealand batter Tim Robinson will make his Blast debut for the Steelbacks, as he is standing in for the next four games as Matt Breetzke is away on international duty with South Africa.

Steelbacks squad v Lightning: David Willey, George Bartlett, Ravi Bopara, Justin Broad, Liam Guthrie, Dom Leech, Lewis McManus, Lloyd Pope, Luke Procter, Tim Robinson, Ben Sanderson, George Scrimshaw, Ricardo Vasconcelos, Saf Zaib