After the wash out of the first home Friends Life t20 match against Durham the previous week it was hoped that conditions would be better for the match against Northamptonshire Steelbacks. Despite heavy overcast conditions throughout the afternoon and drizzle at times the match still went ahead, even with the covers still being on most of the square when the toss was made.
With Damien Wright out injured, Chris Whelan took his place as the only change to the side that lost narrowly to Yorkshire a couple of days previous. Daryl Mitchell won the toss for Worcestershire and perhaps with one eye on the weather chose to field first. Ex-Worcestershire players Andrew Hall and Chaminda Vaas opened the batting for Northants. Jack Shantry picked up the wickets of both openers in his first spell. Andrew Hall was caught by Shakib Al-Hasan for 14 and Vaas followed soon after clean bowled for 1. Northants were hampered by the retirement of David Sales when he scored 7 after he pulled with what appeared to be a hamstring injury after being called through for a quick single.
Another ex-Worcestershire player, Stephen Peters scored 22 in a 3rd wicket stand of 49 with Alex Wakely before being sharply caught in the covers by Daryl Mitchell off the bowling of Shaaiq Choudhry. The Worcestershire bowlers did a good job on a slow paced pitch of restricting the boundaries and keeping the pressure on Northants with wickets falling regularly throughout the innings. Last man out, on the last ball of the innings was Wakely who score a competition best 62 as his team finished on 134-9 in their 20 over allocation. Al-Hasan picked up three wickets in his final over, and the final over of the match, to finish on 3-29, with Choudhry taking 2-24 from his four overs and Jack Shantry very economical with 2-12 in three overs.
Despite a relatively low total to chase it was not ideal batting conditions when the Worcestershire innings began in poor light and light drizzle for the first part of the innings. Jack Brooks picked up an early wicket but Moeen Ali and Alexei Kervezee ensured that there would be no collapse with a solid 2nd wicket stand of 85 in just over 11 overs. Using the D/L target score as a guide the pair batted sensibly, ensuring that Worcestershire were always just ahead of the required run rate at all times just in case the weather closed in.
Johan Botha picked up two wickets in one over with the stumping, of a leg side wide delivery, of Moeen Ali for 53 and then trapping Al-Hasan the very next ball LBW. Moeen's innings came off just 48 deliveries and including six boundaries.
However Gareth Andrew was able to guide the home side to victory with a quick fire 21 off 15 balls as Worcestershire up the run rate and reached their target with two overs to spare. Kervezee was left unbeaten on a career best 44* from just 34 deliveries.
Worcestershire (135-3) beat Northamptonshire (134-9) by 7 wickets.
