Wakely hails togetherness of ‘best’ Steelbacks he has known

Having been restricted to 150 in their 20 overs - and only reached that total because of an excellent Steven Crook half-century - the County went on to keep a talented Somerset order to a mere 140.

It was a phenomenal fielding effort and one which, according the skipper, highlighted the camaraderie that exists within the dressing-room.

Wakely said: “This is better than 2009 (when the Steelbacks reached Twenty20 finals day).

“It’s the best environment I’ve played in at Northants.

“There’s no magic formula, don’t get me wrong.

“It’s not because of any changes in personnel or anything like that.

“It has just come together so well this season.

“We’ve got a squad that believe they can win, a squad that want to play for each other and a squad that are performing.”

And perform they certainly did against Somerset.

Although they were below par with the bat, a determined fielding effort more than made up for it.

“It’s really good to see we have won close games when we’ve batted second and we’ve won games when we’ve bowled second,” Wakely explained.

“When the bowlers haven’t performed the batsmen have and vice versa - that’s pretty much the perfect formula for one-day cricket.

“The last two games we have almost batted so well we haven’t really been under pressure.

“As a result we might have got a bit sloppy in the field.

“But we knew we hadn’t got as many runs on the board and had to work for it.

“I said in the team huddle that we had to bust a gut out there and if they beat us they beat us because they were better and that we left nothing out on the field.

“We did that and got the reward.

“It was a great effort.

“At the moment it is going really well and we are going to enjoy it because we had some tough times last year.

“That said, there is still a long way to go and no one is carried away.”