Ashwell Prince continued his great run of form by slamming a career best 78 for Lancashire in their Natwest T2o match against Durham on Friday night.

But it was all in vain as his team-mates failed to pitch up, losing five wickets for four runs off eight balls, with Alviro Petersen the next best on 20 off 24 balls. They fell far behind on the required rate, chasing just 155. Prince was eventually run out after 51 balls (8×4) with 24 needed off 10 balls, and Lancashire went down by 16 runs.

Hashim Amla struggled to get going when opening the  innings for Derbyshire, falling for eight off 12 balls the team went down by seven wickets to Leicestershire. His team-mates managed to scrape together 168, but solid contributions from the Leics top six was enough to overcome that with an over to spare.

Jacques Rudolph, too, stood up to be counted, but he too had the endure the agony of watching his Glamorgan side be run down by Essex by five wickets with 14 balls remaining. Rudolph scored 30 off 29 balls, but only Colin Ingram (24 off 20) and Chris Cooke (31) offered any resistance. Essex had Ravi Bopara’s 81 off 53 (5×4, 5×6) to underpin their innings.

Glamorgan were still without Wayne Parnell, signed with much fanfare as the second overseas player alongside Rudolph for the T20 tournament and was snapped up for at least 10 matches in the group stages. But he has been battling a groin problem which saw him miss the first two matches. His availablity for next week’s match is also in doubt.

Elsewhere, Rikki Wessels (15) saw his Nottinghamshire side beaten by six wickets by Yorkshire.

Compiled by Mark Salter