David Willey is set to make his one-day bow for the season when Northamptonshire entertain Sussex on Friday evening.
The all-rounder was omitted from the side for the opening Yorkshire Bank 40 clash of the season against Nottinghamshire to give him a short break but his inclusion is likely to be the only change to the Steelbacks’ line-up as they look to bounce back from a 83-run thumping in their opener.
The Notts encounter was something of a mis-match with an international-laden visiting side powering to an emphatic victory and head coach David Ripley admitted that it gave an example of the standards that have to be attained.
He said: “We’ve got no excuses. We were up against one of the best teams in the country and we simply didn’t execute our skills as we would’ve liked.
“Their record in the competition is very good without having got to any semi-finals or finals and it gave us a good nudge and showed us what work we have to do.”
The Steelbacks have few injury doubts ahead of the floodlit outing with only batsman Rob Newton a definite non-starter.
But Ripley admitted that a close eye will have to be kept on the seam-bowling contingent.
He added: “Olly Stone has got a bit of an ankle issue and Steven Crook has a couple of niggles.
“They’re both fit to play but we don’t want to be greedy, especially with Steven and David (Willey).
“They’re dynamic players who throw themselves around and we don’t want to try and bit off too much regarding their workload.”
Stephen Peters will continue in his role as opener alongside Kyle Coetzer with the latter, as well as David Sales, in need of a decent score after an underwhelming start to the campaign.
Sussex have built up a reputation as one of the more accomplished limited overs sides in the domestic game but they also lost their first game at the weekend as they were beaten by Worcestershire.