Keaton Jennings guides comfortable Lancashire chase

Lancashire Lightning briefly went top of the North Group in the Vitality Blast on Friday - at least until Nottinghamshire's victory later in the day - when they completed a very straightforward eight-wicket victory over Derbyshire Falcons at Aigburth.

Having won a vital toss and asked the visitors to bat on a pitch where run-scoring was never easy, Lancashire skipper Dane Vilas saw his bowlers restrict the Falcons to 98 for 7 off their 20 overs. Lancashire then overhauled that total with 16 balls to spare to record their second win against Derbyshire in five days, Keaton Jennings finishing the match unbeaten on 49.

The Falcons' innings got off to a dreadful start when they lost both openers in the third over. Billy Godleman was caught at mid-on for 8 by Luke Wood off Tom Bailey's first ball and Wood was in the action once again when his direct hit ran out Luis Reece for 4.

Things went from bad to much worse for the visitors, first when Wayne Madsen was caught down the leg side by Davies off Bailey for 1 and then when Leus du Plooy's appeared to think better of a pull shot off Danny Lamb but could only top-edge another catch to Davies.

Abysmally placed on 18 for 4 at the end of the six Powerplay overs, the Falcons' innings was sorely in need of rebuilding. Matt Critchley and Alex Hughes attempted to accomplish this but their shot selection was inevitably constrained and Derbyshire had only 34 runs on the board at the midpoint of their innings.

In the next over Critchley was leg before wicket to Tom Hartley for 6 when attempting a sweep, and a mix-up between Anuj Dal and Hughes allowed Vilas plenty of time to run out Dal for 5 and leave the visitors on 48 for 6 after 14 overs.

In the 16th over, Hughes swept Matt Parkinson to the boundary, thus notching Derbyshire's first boundary since the seventh ball of their innings and the Falcons batsman repeated the feat a few balls later. However, Hughes was leg before to Stephen Parry for 32 when trying to reverse sweep the first ball of the next over.

Mattie McKiernan slog-swept Parkinson to register the only six of the innings but he and Harvey Hosein were then content to take their side past 81, their side's lowest total against Lancashire, before McKiernan drove Bailey over mid-off for another boundary.

The innings ended with the Falcons on 98 for 7 with McKiernan unbeaten on 24 and Hosein on 10 not out. Their unbroken stand of 34 was by far the highest of the innings. Some of Lancashire's bowling figures were miserly, indeed, Hartley taking 1 for 14 from four overs and Bailey 2 for 13 from three. Derbyshire's innings contained five fours and one six.

Needing to score at a fraction less than five runs an over, Lancashire's openers, Alex Davies and Jennings went about their task in a calm and efficient fashion. They brought up the fifty in the ninth over and had extended their stand to 61 when Davies was bowled by Critchley for 36, his first score under fifty in this year's Blast.

Josh Bohannon was superbly caught by a diving McKiernan off du Plooy for three but any Lancastrian jitters were dispelled when Jennings struck successive straight boundaries in the same over. Vilas then ended the game in the 18th over with a straight six off du Plooy