Northamptonshire’s efforts in the Barbados Twenty20 Cup didn’t go to plan as they suffered back-to-back defeats over the weekend.
Alex Wakely’s side were thrashed by Nottinghamshire, the eventual winners of the competition, on Saturday before a narrow loss to Hampshire in the Plate Final on Sunday.
Against Notts, Alex Hales (53), Michael Lumb (33) and James Taylor (46no) led the Outlaws to a total of 172-6.
Considering that the initial six-over powerplay ended with the score at 81-0, this represented something of a decent fightback.
Any chance of victory was gone when the Steelbacks were reduced to 32-5 in their reply and they stumbled to a paltry 80 with County old boy Graeme White doing the damage with 4-10.
The following day the County’s batting again let them down as they could only muster 92-8 against Hampshire, Ben Duckett top-scoring with an unbeaten 26.
Olly Stone then took 3-8 as Hampshire’s chase stuttered but they got home seven wickets down with two balls remaining.
Next up for the County is a two-day clash with Warwickshire on Wednesday and Thursday.