Liam Livingstone interrupts construction in Derbyshire destruction

These teams arrived at Emirates Old Trafford still basking in the triumphs of yesterday evening. That, though, was rather where the similarities ended. Whereas Derbyshire's nine-wicket hammering of Yorkshire was their fourth T20 victory at Headingley in the past six seasons, Lancashire's 87-run defeat of Nottinghamshire represented their first short-form win at Trent Bridge since 2009. In addition, while Derbyshire's players opted to stay in Leeds overnight, Dane Vilas' team decided to return home straight after the match - and were duly held up on the M6 by a caravan on fire. Welcome to the glamorous world of the English professional cricket.

There were other contrasts: the announcement of England's one-day squad for the short series against the Netherlands this month has done nothing to disturb Derbyshire's plans for this year's Vitality Blast; none of their players has been chosen. Lancashire, on the other hand, must do without Liam Livingstone, Phil Salt and Luke Wood. They will also have to cope without Jos Buttler's services but they've been more or less doing that for seven years.

To a degree, this game and Lancashire's 17-run victory reflected that imbalance. And yet, having been asked to score a T20 county record 220 to win the match, Shan Masood's batters gave it a helluva crack, even if the skipper was run out by Steven Croft for 8 in the second over. A fifty by opener Luis Reece and an unbeaten 59 by Leus du Plooy showed why Derbyshire have already notched two Blast wins this season; their gutsy, if unavailing, pursuit suggested they will grab a few more. And more generally, it offered further evidence that Mickey Arthur is developing a decent team at the County Ground; no doubt, the ECB's temporary executives are turning cartwheels round their offices at the prospect.

In the end, though, it was not enough and had never seriously threatened to be so. The visitors needed 36 off 12 balls and Richard Gleeson leaked only six runs off the 19th over. More fundamentally, though, Derbyshire lost because Lancashire has always ensured they had a batter at the wicket capable of wreaking gory havoc. If it wasn't Keaton Jennings, it was Salt; if not Salt, then Livingstone and if not Livingstone, then Steven Croft. And there was nothing indiscriminate in the slaughter that followed; rather, it rested on the maintenance of calculated mayhem.

Having won the toss, Dane Vilas loosed his top order on Derbyshire's bowlers and the ball went everywhere. Jennings hit five fours and a six into the second tier of the stand at long leg before he skied Sam Conners to George Scrimshaw at third man and strode off with 34 runs to his name. Salt straight-drove Hayden Kerr's first two balls of the match to the boundary before becoming becalmed and holing out at mid-on off Scrimshaw. The powerplay yielded 71 runs, although 18 of those had been scored by Livingstone, whose arrival merely jacked up the chaos.

Until Livingstone ambled out and almost immediately whacked Conners for a six over long-on, the home side's innings had concerned only the cricketers and the crowd. But as befits a Barrovian, the Lancashire allrounder is a democratic fellow and he decided to involve the construction workers on the site of the old Red Rose Suite.

Mark Watt, one of four former Lancashire players in the Derbyshire side, was pulled into the excavators for six and then swept into an adjoining plot for four. Men in lime-green bibs and hard hats found and returned the ball. Then Vilas did more or less the same thing; then Livingstone again. The builders decided the batters could sod this for a game of soldiers and went home, although they left one poor soul on duty as a sort of Ballfinder General.

Livingstone also remained in post and had made 75 off 40 balls when he was caught at deep cover by Conners off Kerr. By then, of course, the record books had been consulted for various record team totals in short-form cricket but it was to Derbyshire's credit that the statistics went unused.

For example, Mattie McKiernan conceded only 12 runs off his final two overs, both of them bowled when Livingstone and Vilas were handing out serious clatter. The legspinner finished with one for 34 off his four overs. Other bowlers - Masood used only five - were less fortunate; Croft climbed into Conners' final over and his 10-ball 28 made him the first Lancashire batter to reach 4,000 runs in short-form cricket.

The home bowlers reached no such landmarks. Instead, they suffered much as Derbyshire's had on a true wicket where only accurate spinners possessed of variation and street cunning could scape whipping. So Livingstone took 1 for 28 and romped away with any notional gold award while Tom Hartley's three overs went for 39 runs, 19 of them in his final set of six as Brooke Guest and du Plooy threw the kitchen sink and every utensil they could find at the task. This assault didn't scare a side with over 200 runs on the board but it will petrify a few teams before this season's Blast is done.