Preview: Northants Steelbacks vs Bears Men, Vitality Blast

The Bears will be looking to continue their good run against high-flying Northants Steelbacks following an excellent weekend of performances. After losing their opening two, the Bears completed two co

joshstacey

2025-06-10T17:43:46.000Z

The Bears will be looking to continue their good run against high-flying Northants Steelbacks following an excellent weekend of performances.

After losing their opening two, the Bears completed two comprehensive victories over Yorkshire Vikings and Derbyshire Falcons to kick-start their Blast campaign and climb to fifth in the table.

Hassan Ali was the star of the weekend, taking 6/23 against the Falcons on Sunday, including a hat-trick, the first of his T20 career, and fifth by a Bear in the format.

His stellar performance powered the Bears to a dominant 58 victory over the Falcons, who have now lost all of their first four matches.

Earlier in the week, Alex Davies had led from the front in helping the Bears to secure their first victory of the Blast season, a calm and composed six-wicket victory over the Vikings.

In pursuit of 168, Davies and Tom Latham put on an opening stand of 103 to break the back of the chase, with the Bears boasting a more than deep enough batting line-up to cruise home to victory.

Reflecting on his match-winning performance, Hassan said, “After I got the two wickets, I spoke with Tom Latham and we were making a plan of what to bowl. I looked at him (the batter) and saw that he was standing on the legside of the ball, so I should go for the yorker.

“At the end of the day, we succeeded (in winning), and I got my first hat-trick in T20.”

Northants have got their own stars pulling up trees, with Ben Sanderson registering a staggering spell of 4 overs, 6 wickets for just 8 runs against the Worcestershire Rapids, including a hat-trick to finish the game off.

They are five from five in the Blast and have been in imperious form this season.

They posted a gargantuan 237/4 against the Vikings in the first round before skittling the Foxes for a measly 122 in the second round.

Ravi Bopara then rolled back the years against the Falcons, striking 84 from 46 balls, to power them up to 194/6, eventually winning by six runs.

This was followed by Sanderson’s destruction of the Rapids, and on Sunday, they efficiently dispatched Lancashire Lightning by 24 runs, thanks largely to George Scrimshaw’s 4/19, which all but ended the contest.

The Bears will be looking to maintain their momentum by taking down the league leaders before heading to Headingley to face the Vikings exactly a week on from their victory over them at Edgbaston.

When asked about the trip to Northamptonshire, Hassan said, “I’ve never played T20 cricket there, only warm-ups or four-day games.”

“I’ll also be playing against my head coach, Ravi Bopara, who is the head coach of the Karachi Kings.

“I’m looking forward to the trip.”

Squad

Alex Davies (c)Hassan AliMoeen AliEd BarnardDanny BriggsGeorge GartonSam HainOlly Hannon-DalbyTom LathamJake LintottCraig MilesDan MousleyKai SmithRob Yates

How to follow

Members and supporters can follow the match live in our Match Centre at edgbaston.com, which will include a free-to-watch stream and a live text commentary. You can also see a ball-by-ball feed and watch highlights of all the action.

Supporters can get involved by sending their match-day comments and thoughts on X via @WarwickshireCCC and we’ll publish the best ones on our live text commentary in the Match Centre.

Supporters can also watch the Live Stream and get instant push notifications of all wickets, innings and match results via the Edgbaston app, which is free to download on iOS and Android.

Match updates will also be available across the Club’s social media accounts, simply search for @WarwickshireCCC.