Yorkshire Phoenix saw their alarming slump in the totesport League continue last night when they lost by five wickets to Derbyshire Phantoms. It was Yorkshire's sixth consecutive defeat and their tenth in 11 matches but victory for Derbyshire moved them into the third promotion spot.

At one stage it appeared as if the game would be over before dark as Yorkshire wickets toppled but an unbeaten half-century from Joe Sayers helped them recover to 171 for nine.

Derbyshire still had plenty of work to do when Jon Moss was third out at 71, bowled by Steven Patterson who picked up his first wicket for Yorkshire, but Hassan Adnan gradually assumed command with a fighting 57 which was ended by Anthony McGrath who made a mess of all three stumps.

Captain, Luke Sutton, having put on 70 with Adnan, also fell to McGrath, but Derbyshire had enough in reserve to make it with 14 balls to spare, 31 of their runs coming from wides.

Winning the toss, Yorkshire were soon in desperate trouble and by the 21st over they had slumped to 66 for seven and were seemingly set to finish beneath their lowest ever score against Derbyshire of 117 at Huddersfield in 1978.

The rot set in as early as the first over when Ian Harvey played Graeme Welch towards cover point and called a single but Matthew Wood set off slowly and was beaten Moss's direct hit.

In the next over, Harvey had his off-bail trimmed by a good ball from Mo Sheikh. Michael Lumb batted attractively until he played on to his stumps against Welch.

Andrew Gale was caught behind nibbling at Welch, McGrath, having spent 18 overs and 44 balls accumulating 16, got an inside edge into his stumps off Ian Hunter.

Next to go was Richard Pyrah who went back to Moss and was pinned lbw and with his next ball the Australian cracked Simon Guy's off-stump. Sayers gave the score respectability but Derbyshire cruised to victory.