Northants players must fight for careers, says Mal Loye

James Kettleborough has Northants' highest County Championship average this season of 29.67

Former Northants batsman Mal Loye has said players need to improve for the sake of their own careers.

The Wantage Road side's season is all-but over after Monday's One-Day Cup loss to Derbyshire.

The club are also bottom of Division One and are out of the T20 Blast.

"Individually they need to find goals within themselves, otherwise they are not going to be professional cricketers for much longer," ex-England one-day player Loye told BBC Radio Northampton.

It has been a difficult year for Northants, who face immediate relegation back to Division Two, failed to progress passed the group stage in their defence of their T20 title, and need to win both of their remaining One-Day Cup matches and hope results go their way to stand any chance of reaching the quarter-finals.

"Throughout my career I wanted to win trophies. But the ultimate goal for me was to play at the highest level," said Loye, who scored 15,329 first-class runs for Lancashire and Northants.

"My incentive didn't change from where I was in April. I wanted to score a double hundred, have a good finish to the season, get on an England tour and have goals.

"You have to find your own individual goal which will in turn be good for your county."

Northants have particularly struggled with the bat this season, and the list of Division One's top 50 averages is devoid of a player from Wantage Road.

"I looked at the averages the other day," said Loye. "Nobody has performed.

"It can be a vicious circle. Suddenly there becomes a batting and a bowling team, and they can be blaming each other. That has to be put to bed."