DURHAM threatened to squander a scintillating start in last night's Friends Life t20 match at home to group leaders Nottinghamshire. But the visitors suffered an even greater wobble and lost by 33 runs.
While Phil Mustard's brilliant 75 provided the highlight for Durham in reaching 187 for eight, Chris Rushworth bounced back from recent maulings with some excellent bowling to take three for 20.
Durham also finally made good use of their spinners as the pressure exerted by Gareth Breese and Ian Blackwell sparked Nottinghamshire's collapse from 105 for one to 128 for six.
The spin twins conceded only 50 runs in eight overs between them and picked up two wickets each.
After scorching to 145 for two in 13 overs Durham had a record total in their sights and became guilty of over-ambition. Six wickets were surrendered and they added only a further 42 runs.
The pre-match fireworks had been upstaged by Mustard's pyrotechnics, but it became painful to watch as Mitch Claydon had to face the 19th over from lanky seamer Andy Carter and only two edged runs came from it.
Once Graham Onions had bowled a poor second over, in which he was punished for dropping short by conceding 20 runs, the visitors looked to be on their way to their fifth win from six games.
Sensible batting by Adam Voges and Riki Wessels took them to 92 for one after ten overs, almost halfway to their target.
But two overs later Voges fell for 46, clipping Blackwell to Paul Collingwood at mid-wicket and when David Hussey tried to get off the mark off the next ball he succeeded only in running out Wessels for 32.
With only six runs coming from two overs against the spinners Samit Patel holed out at long-on.
The pressure became too much even for Hussey, who skied Breese to Collingwood and the off-spinner finished with two for 20 when Chris Read swept him to deep backward square.
At that point it was a lost cause for the visitors, who became increasingly frantic as they finished on 154 for eight.
Mustard was well on course to become Durham's T20 first century-maker until he fell for 75 in the 12th over.
With reverse sweeps, flips and paddles flying from his bat, along with more orthodox cuts, pulls and drives over mid-off, he scored his runs off only 41 balls.
While he was putting on 79 in eight overs with Blackwell Durham looked likely to cruise past 200. It was still possible as long as Blackwell was going strong, but when he became the second of three run out victims in the 15th over it all went wrong.
Dale Benkenstein won the toss for the fourth successive match and this time he decided to bat first on a glorious evening.
Only three runs were scored off the bat in the opening over from Darren Pattinson, but four leg byes helped and the next two overs, from Luke Fletcher and Andy Carter, produced 29 runs.
Andy Carter tried to use his height to extract some lift, but Mustard sat back to steer an upper cut high over backward point for six.
The score had reached 44 in the fourth over when Mustard cut Pattinson to point and declined Gordon Muchall's call for a run. Muchall kept on coming and was run out for 11.
The Outlaws were looking short of gun-slingers when they turned to Hussey to send down his part-time off breaks in the fifth over. After three full tosses in his first five balls he was lucky to have conceded only six runs, but Blackwell pulled the last one for six.
Durham had 67 on the board after the six-over powerplay and Mustard reached 50 off 28 balls by driving Carter over mid-off for his eighth four in the eighth over.
When Nottinghamshire brought on Patel he was bludgeoned for 38 runs in three overs, but Mustard departed when he drove at a slower ball wide of off stump from medium pacer Steven Mullaney and was stumped by Chris Read.
Collingwood cleverly flipped the next ball from off stump over short fine leg for four but made only four more before going down the track and having his stumps splattered by Carter.
That brought in David Miller in the 14th over with a little longer to bat than in his previous two unbeaten knocks.
The left-hander struggled with Mullaney's donkey drops aimed into his feet and when he declined Blackwell's call for a leg bye the No 3 batsman was unable to get back.
He left with an angry swish of the bat, having made 43 off 27 balls, then Benkenstein became the third run out victim when he drove to mid-off and had no chance of beating Pattinson's direct hit.
Only 13 runs had come from three overs when Patel returned for his fourth over and Miller launched him over long-on for six.
But after making 19 off 17 balls he flipped an easy catch to short fine leg off Pattinson, who also had Gareth Breese lbw and Liam Plunkett caught at deep square leg off the penultimate ball.
It seemed the momentum had swung in the Outlaws' favour but after getting into a winning position they made a much bigger hash of the second half of their innings than Durham.
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