WORCESTERSHIRE Rapids' director of cricket Steve Rhodes is backing his side to bounce straight back after being knocked off the top of the NatWest T20 Blast North Group last night.

The New Road outfit lost a high-scoring thriller by two runs at home to Northamptonshire Steelbacks and Birmingham Bears took advantage with a one-run success at Lancashire Lightning.

Worcestershire's local rivals are now two points ahead at the top of the table with the County next facing Nottinghamshire Outlaws at Trent Bridge on Friday and hosting Durham Jets on Sunday, July 5.

Rhodes insisted after the Northants defeat: "If we play as well as this, we are going to win plenty more games and we look forward to the next one.

"This is a good team we've got and we will back these lads to do it again for us. We will pick ourselves up."

Steelbacks amassed 193-8 as only young spinner Brett D'Oliveira, with 1-26 off four overs, could keep the run-rate down.

A late onslaught with the bat from Northants proved crucial with Worcestershire falling just short on 191-6.

This was despite fine efforts from Ross Whiteley (41 not out), Tom Kohler-Cadmore (36), skipper Daryl Mitchell (34), Colin Munro (33) and Ben Cox (24).

The second-placed County still boast a positive record of five wins from eight T20 games and a 0.471 run-rate with last night being their third defeat of the campaign.

Rhodes said: "It was a wonderful game of cricket. To get so close to such a big score was a great effort from the lads.

"I'm very proud of the batting and the way they tried their best to get there, especially after losing Moeen Ali to the first ball.

"We would look at the last three overs and highlight 61 runs going in the Northants innings, which potentially made the chase quite difficult.

"If we had finished off their innings a little bit better, we would have been chasing a more reasonable target and probably would have won."