Yorkshire Vikings captain Andrew Gale has urged his players to keep their heads up following their opening NatWest T20 Blast defeat to reigning champions Northants Steelbacks.

Yorkshire suffered a three-wicket loss on Friday, but Gale believes that the result does not reflect the team's performance.

"The lads were gutted," the Northern Echo quotes Gale as saying. "It's important as a squad that we don't get too down about it because I thought we did some really good things.

"You don't want the lads to start nit-picking at things in a game where you lose a close one. That's Twenty20 cricket, and that's what it's like. You just want to keep the lads going out and expressing themselves."

Yorkshire have lost all of their opening matches in a T20 campaign for the last five seasons.