Lancashire suffered their second Royal London One-Day Cup defeat in a row after Nottinghamshire Outlaws achieved a four-wicket victory at Liverpool.
The game had been evenly fought since Lancashire were put
into bat in testing conditions, but an unbeaten 71-run stand between Chris Read
(47) and Brett Hutton (33) guided the visitors to their target of 217 with 3.2
overs to spare.
Karl Brown top-scored for Lancashire with 77, sharing a
66-run partnership with captain Steven Croft (38), but a total of 216/8 always
seemed under-par despite the tough overhead conditions which hampered the Red
Rose for most of their innings.
Lancashire suffered an early blow when Ashwell Prince (5)
skied a delivery from all-rounder Hutton (1-31), although Jake Ball had to take
a good catch running backwards with the ball swirling from a dank sky with the
score at 19/1. Slow but steady progress ensured that Lancashire did not lose
any more wickets inside the first ten overs, as Brown and Alviro Petersen
assembled a composed partnership worth 52 runs.
Long periods of slow scoring were broken by big hits from
Brown, who hit the first of three sixes into the leg side off Hutton to relieve
some of the pressure after the loss of Prince. He then swept a second maximum,
this time off the bowling of Steven Mullaney, who soon collected the wickets of
Petersen when he over-balanced and was stumped by Read for 28.
Brown and Paul Horton started to compose a useful
partnership, but Imran Tahir (1-43) picked up a fortuitous wicket when Horton
(13) dragged a ball from a long way outside the off-stump back onto his
leg-stump, a wicket which left Lancashire on 96/3 with Brown approaching fifty.
The Lancashire opener went on to reach his first
half-century of the campaign in 86 deliveries with two fours and as many sixes,
a crucial innings for the home side who would have been struggling to post a
decent target without his contribution.
Brown hit his third six when he thumped Mullaney (1-43) over
mid-wicket and his partnership with Croft had developed into a solid platform
for the innings to thrive, but the loss of both batsmen in quick succession had
a negative impact on the rest of the innings thereafter.
Nottinghamshire collected the important wicket of Brown when he came down the track to Samit Patel (3-31) and was stumped by Read for 77 and Croft departed soon after he was caught superbly by Tahir on the square-leg boundary to give Patel his second scalp of the innings.
James Faulkner (17) made an eye-catching start to his
innings, thumping Patel for six over square-leg with the biggest blow of the
Lancashire innings, but he was unable to tame his enthusiasm when he skied
Patel into the gloves of Read.
The innings continued to stumble in the latter stages as
Alex Davies (14) edged an attempted reverse-sweep to Read at 203/7 and Ball
collected a second breakthrough in as many overs when he had Arron Lilley
caught by Brendan Taylor for eight, the fifth wicket to fall for 42 runs after
the loss of Brown at 162/4.
Lancashire were able to restrict the Outlaws from making too
much headway in the opening stages of the innings, removing Rikki Wessels (6)
when he pulled a delivery from Gavin Griffiths into the hands of Petersen at square-leg.
Notts skipper James Taylor started his innings as he
intended to carry on, helping himself to a six off Griffiths inside the
ten-over powerplay as he he and the dangerous Alex Hales started to find the
fence regularly. The pair added 35 runs in not time at all, making the most of
a difficult chance to remove Hales when he was put down by Davies behind the
stumps.
Griffiths had taken his share of stick from the Notts
batsmen, but he pulled off one of the best return catches off his own bowling to
remove Hales for 32, just as he had started to reach a stage of near
invincibility after hitting four boundaries and a six of his own off Griffiths.
The young fast bowler then collected his third victim of the
innings and his second wicket in three balls when he had Zimbabwean batsman
Taylor out for no score with a ball that stuck in the pitch, forcing Taylor to
chip the ball to Prince at mid-off for a simple catch at 53/3.
This wicket gave Griffiths figures of 3-14, but
match-winning batsmen continued to come at Lancashire as Taylor and Patel
assembled a partnership worth 51 runs for the fourth wicket.
Lancashire needed a breakthrough to stand any chance of
winning the game and it took a superb catch from Brown off the bowling of
Stephen Parry (1-36) to dismiss Patel for 29, a wicket which signalled a
reasonable spell for the home side, who claimed three important wickets for 42
runs while runs proved hard to come by for the away side.
Lilley collected the first of two wickets when he had
Mullaney (6) caught by Horton at leg slip moments after he had been put there
by his skipper and the Lancashire off-spinner claimed the vital wicket of
Taylor after he had advanced to a 74-ball fifty when he was stumped by Davies
for 56 at 146/6.
Lancashire may have felt that they were in the driving seat
after removing the Notts captain, but an old nemesis in the form of Read lead
the Outlaws to only their first victory against Lancashire in this format in
the last eight encounters. He and Hutton took the game away from the home side
in a partnership containing very few opportunities for Lancashire to continue
the progress they had made with the ball.
Read thumped Griffiths for successive boundaries to secure
victory for his side with 20 balls in hand, thumping a straight six before guiding
the ball through the covers to give Notts a four-wicket win at Aigburth.
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