Steelbacks strive to regain T20 momentum ahead of Blast clash with Somerset

It has been six weeks since David Willey's side wrapped up their North Group campaign with superb back-to-back victories over big guns Birmingham Bears and Lancashire Lightning.

They were stunning results that secured a second place finish and a home date in the last eight, and at that time Northants were flying.

But as is the way with the English domestic schedule, T20 cricket was then put on the backburner for The Hundred and the One Day Cup, with a bit of red ball cricket thrown in for good measure.

Although it was only a little bit as the County's Championship clash against Gloucestershire a Bristol was abandoned after just 65 overs.

Now the focus has to quickly return to the helter-skelter of T20, and Sadler is confident his players will be ready for the clash with the reigning champions at Wantage Road.

The Steelbacks have been back in white ball mode in training at the County Ground since Monday, and on Tuesday night they played an inter-club T20 match under the floodlights to get their skills sharpened up.

"The abandonment at Bristol has given us a little bit of extra time, first to get fresh and then also get our heads around T20," said the head coach.

"We had a nice practice session on Friday, plus some time away over the weekend, and we then hit Monday running.

"We had a squad meeting on Monday about T20, and getting our minds back into that flow and getting ourselves around that game again, and we tried to relive a couple of the memories.

"We tried to recreate that feeling that we had after the win over Birmingham here on the Thursday and then Lancs away on the Friday, because that is probably as euphoric as I have been, certainly in my time here, but also as a coach over the past 12 years.

"We tried to understand why we were in such a good place, what we had done well, and we tried to rekindle that and then try and gain momentum from the three days of training we will have.

"That was the plan, and we had a really good day on Monday."

But Sadler also admitted it is far from ideal to have such a gap between the end of the group stages and the quarter-finals, especially as the Steelbacks will now be without top runscorer Matt Breetzke.

The South African is unavailable as he is captaining his country's A team in a ODI series against Sri Lanka A, while Ravi Bopara also misses out after damaging a finger playing in the Max60 in the Caribbean, and there is a doubt over Ricardo Vasconcelos who is nursing a fractured hand.

"It is frustrating, because six weeks ago I believe we would have taken anybody on and would have beaten them," said Sadler.

"But that's the game, we have to adapt accordingly and I still think we have got a really good chance on Thursday and I can see us winning that game."