Northants named unchanged squad for crunch clash at Gloucestershire

The match starts on Monday (11am), and the County will be hoping to bounce back from last week's four-wicket defeat at the hands of LV= Insurance County Championship title challengers Lancashire.

That defeat saw Northants slip to seventh in the table, but they are still 20 points better off than second-from-bottom Somerset, and 50 points ahead of rock-bottom Gloucester.

The hosts have failed to win any of their 10 matches, losing seven, and with just four fixtures remaining this season will see this as a ‘must-win’ encounter.

The two sides met at the County Ground in April, with that clash ending in a thrilling draw, with Northants 27 runs shy of victory and Gloucester two wickets away.

The match is part of the 150th Cheltenham Cricket Festival and will be Will Young’s first as skipper away from the County Ground.

The New Zealander and head coach John Sadler will now have to decide to stick with the team that went down to Lancashire, or to switch things around, with Josh Cobb and James Sales the other starting options available to them.

The match will be Ryan Rickelton’s final one for Northants before he leaves to join up with the South Africa Test squad.

Northants squad v Gloucestershire: Will Young, Josh Cobb, Emilio Gay, Rob Keogh, Simon Kerrigan, Lewis McManus, Luke Procter, Ryan Rickelton, James Sales, Ben Sanderson, Tom Taylor, Ricardo Vasconcelo, Jack White

Gloucestershire squad: Graeme van Buuren, James Bracey, Zak Chappell, Chris Dent, Zafar Gohar, Miles Hammond, Marcus Harris. Ryan Higgins, David Payne, Ollie Price, Tom Price, George Scott, Josh Shaw, Jared Warner