Blast Preview: Bears v Lightning

Farbrace: "Will can focus on being the best T20 player he can be"

The Bears are flying and Will Rhodes expects the Hollies Stand to be "absolutely bouncing" when his side at last launches their Vitality Blast home campaign, against Lancashire Lightning tomorrow (6.30pm).

A run of four straight wins in six days on the road sprung the Bears to the top of the North Group and has laid a great platform for a sustained push for qualification - and ideally a top-two spot for a home quarter final.

In brushing aside Notts Outlaws, Derbyshire Falcons, Northamptonshire Steelbacks and Leicestershire Foxes on their own turf, the Bears played some superb T20 cricket.

Now they face their first home test and it is a mouth-watering one as they meet the Lightning with both sides flying high in the North Group.

The atmosphere will be buzzing as Edgbaston welcomes back the Blast.

"Lancashire are a very good T20 team and we have had some exciting tussles with them over the years, so it should be a great game in front of our own crowd."

The Bears could not go into the match in better spirits after four successive wins in which they have struck 60 fours and 27 sixes and taken 37 wickets and 25 catches.

Rhodes, who contributed five sixes to the tally in a T20 career-best 79 (40 balls) at Leicester on Wednesday, is delighted with his team's early progress.

"Four wins out of five is more than we could have asked for from a very tough set of opening fixtures," he said. "We are near the top of the league and in the qualification spots and that's where we need to stay.

"As a club, the Bears need to be getting to quarter-finals and Finals Day more regularly than we have been doing in recent years and Danny Briggs, Carlos Brathwaite and Tim Bresnan have come in and given us the experience we need so hopefully we can get there this year."

Chris Woakes returns to the Bears' squad tomorrow but his England colleague Olly Stone planned return has been thwarted by some discomfort in his back following his Test match appearance against New Zealand. Also still on the injured list are Adam Hose (hamstring), Henry Brookes (thigh) and Rob Yates (illness).