[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

Games coming thick and fast now as the Pears return to the East Midlands tomorrow, seeking to build on the victory over Durham and really stake a claim on a place in the knockout phase. Opponents Northants, with just one victory from four, are very much entering win-or-bust territory, and will have to deliver an improved performance on home soil to get back into the competition.

It's been a tough time for the hosts in the last couple of years, losing many of the players that made them such a white-ball force to be reckoned with in the middle years of the decade. The key man now is very much overseas signing Jason Holder, with 286 runs from their four games including three half-centuries, and seven wickets at 22.86 with the ball. The only other batsman who comes close to such consistency is Rob Keogh, while the wickets of Ben Sanderson and Blessing Muzarabani - six and five in the competition respectively - have come at considerably greater expense. Opener Josh Cobb seems to have had a particularly torrid time these last couple of weeks, and all too often Northants end up looking to their middle-order to dig them out of a hole.

Their last outing saw them well beaten by Lancashire in a rain-affected game at Old Trafford, having failed to build on their record drubbing of the Bears in the previous game, and with Friday's forecast increasingly iffy as the day progresses, Duckworth-Lewis may well have the final word again. Winning the toss could prove vital for what will likely be another unchanged Pears side.

Probable Worcestershire XI: Wessels, Rutherford, Fell, Mitchell, D'Oliveira, Cox, Whiteley, Barnard, Parnell, Tongue, Morris