Director of professional cricket Martyn Moxon admits Yorkshire face a mountainous task to qualify for the quarter-finals of the Friends Life t20.

But the ex-England opening batsman has urged his players not to throw the towel in just yet.

The White Rose county looked far from a team capable of qualifying for the knockout stages as they slipped to their fifth defeat from ten matches against Leicestershire at Grace Road on Wednesday night.

But they can still secure a place in the top four ahead of tonight’s floodlit trip to Wantage Road to face rock-bottom Northamptonshire.

Moxon, however, accepts that it is the last-chance saloon.

He said: “We are probably going to have to win all six games now to qualify, so it’s a big ask.

“The one thing we can’t do, though, is be negative about either the way we play or our chances of qualifying.

“We have to keep trying to find the solutions to the parts of our game which are not up to scratch.”

Momentum is a frequently used word when it comes to Twenty20 cricket.

Yorkshire had it when they won three out of four matches earlier in the competition, including doing the Roses double over Lancashire in the space of eight days.

But now it has well and truly deserted them.

Referring to the ‘m’-word, Moxon continued: “Ours was stopped by the Championship game at Durham.

“Before then we were in good form with a lot of confidence. That’s gone now.

“We haven’t started since the Durham game, and we need to get back to how we were playing before that match. It’s going to be tough, but we have to keep going.”

The batting order employed against Leicestershire demonstrated their confusion as to what is the best way to win a match.

The successful opening partnership between Andrew Gale and Jonny Bairstow was split up to accommodate Joe Sayers, who had not played a Twenty20 match for two years prior to Wednesday.

Sayers has the quality within his game to slot in the middle order and knock the ball around for ones and twos after the first six overs of powerplay, or clear the ropes towards the end of an innings if needed.

And then it was strange to see Joe Root, who hit 26 off 24 balls and 46 off 41 in two of the last three matches, come in at number nine below Ryan Sidebottom and then Adil Rashid coming in at number 11.

“Twenty20 cricket is a game in which you have to be absolutely clear about what you’re doing,” added Moxon.

“I think all the players are sure of their roles.

“They know what we want them to do, but it’s the execution which is not there at the moment.”

Tonight’s clash should provide Yorkshire with the ideal opportunity to get a fourth win on the board.

Quarter-finalists last year, Northants have only won one of their nine North Division matches so far, and have managed to muster a mere four points.