Northants crushed by Darren Maddy blast

FRIENDS PROVIDENT t20, Edgbaston:
Warwickshire 151-2 (14.1 ovs) beat Northants 147-5 (20 ovs) by eight wickets
Warwickshire 2pts
Match scorecard

Maddy has missed the last two Twenty20 campaigns because of injury

Darren Maddy smashed 88 off only 42 balls as Warwickshire raced to a comprehensive eight-wicket Friends Provident t20 win over Northants.

Jim Troughton (41no) added 116 for the second wicket with Maddy, who hit six sixes and 11 fours, as the Bears cruised to 151-2 with 35 balls left.

Northants had seemed set for a big total after Mal Loye (54) and Niall O'Brien put on 65 for the first wicket.

But Imran Tahir (3-14) turned the screw as Northants mustered 147-5.

Maddy's explosive 88 was the second highest score by a Warwickshire batsman in this form of the game, one run shy of Nick Knight's 89 against Worcestershire in 2003, and also saw him pass 1,500 career Twenty20 runs.

BBC Northampton's Geoff Doyle gives his thoughts:
"A pretty demoralising defeat for the Steelbacks. What a contrast to last year when Northants won their first five matches of the Twenty20 campaign.

"At least with so many more games this year the defeat isn't as significant.

"The only positive was the opening partnership of Mal Loye and Niall O'Brien but once they went the runs dried up. Darren Maddy will grab all the headlines but Imran Tahir's bowling was very classy indeed."

Northamptonshire's Niall O'Brien told BBC Radio Northampton:

"There are a lot of games to go.

"There are sixteen matches in the group so one bad defeat doesn't make the tournament.

"But we've got to play better - we know that."