NORTHAMPTONSHIRE made a confident start to the opening day of ther Frizzell County Championship Division One match with Worcestershire at Northampton.

The home side won the toss and elected to bat and openers Thomas Huggins and Timothy Roberts were soon amongst the runs.

After five overs from Worcestershire pacemen Andy Bichel and Kabir Ali, Northants had moved their score onto 23 with Roberts hitting two fours in his unbeaten 14.

As expected, Worcestershire omitted pace bowlers Nadeem Malik and Mark Harrity and included seamer Kabir Ali and off-spinner Shaftab Khalid.

The County are currently second from bottom in the division one table, but have a game in hand over Northants who are just five points better off than the New Road club.

Worcestershire: S D Peters , S C Moore , G A Hick , B F Smith (capt) , V S Solanki , G J Batty , A J Bichel , Kabir Ali , S J Rhodes (wkt) , M S Mason , S A Khalid.

Umpires: V Holder, A Whitehead.