Worcestershire move close to knock-out stages as D'Oliveira stars against Notts

Worcestershire Rapids registered a third successive win to remain on course for the quarter-finals of the Vitality Blast as they completed a double over Nottinghamshire Outlaws at New Road with a five-wicket success.

The Outlaws were restricted to 139 for 8 after a splendid all-round bowling performance by the home side on a pitch where it was hard to get the ball away.

Dillon Pennington set the tone with a probing three overs during the Powerplay and the spin trio of Mitchell Santner, skipper Brett D'Oliveira and Usama Mir had combined figures of 11-0-65-5. Pat Brown also picked up two more wickets to take his tally to 21 and was unlucky not to add to that figure after a couple of late opportunities were spilled.

D'Oliveira then gave the Rapids reply early momentum with the bat. Although they also found it difficult to score freely against the spinners, Ed Pollock and Adam Hose mixed aggression with sensible batting in adding an unbroken 60 in eight overs to see the Rapids to victory with nine balls to spare.

The Rapids are now level on 14 points with the Outlaws but have a game in hand heading into the tournament's finale. Notts were without Colin Munro (hamstring) and Samit Patel, who was missing his first ever T20 game through injury for the Outlaws, and his first for any reason since 2012, ending a sequence of 145 consecutive Blast appearances.

Haseeb Hameed made his first-ever T20 appearance while the Rapids brought Matthew Waite into their side for new England pace bowler Josh Tongue.

The Outlaws were put into bat by D'Oliveira and quickly ran into trouble. Alex Hales needed one more maximum to become the competition's all-time leading six-hitter but remains on 182 after edging his first delivery from Pennington through to keeper Ben Cox.

Santner also struck in his first over when Lyndon James tried to work the New Zealand all-rounder to leg and played all around a delivery which knocked out his off stump. Former Worcestershire player Joe Clarke lofted Waite for the first six of the game but the Outlaws were restricted to 40-2 in the powerplay.

Matt Montgomery did his best to improvise against some accurate bowling and twice reverse-swept leg spinner Usama for boundaries. But Clarke struggled to 19 from 18 deliveries before he holed out to deep midwicket off D'Oliveira after adding 53 with Montgomery.

Montgomery managed a run a ball 39 but then tried to hit D'Oliveira over the top and perished to a catch by Usama running back from cover. Hameed then aimed a big blow at Santner and only picked out long on and Shaheen Afridi provided catching practice to deep mid wicket off Usama.

Pat Brown then lifted his wicket tally for the tournament to 21 with two in two balls. Outlaws captain Steven Mullaney was pouched at cover and Calvin Harrison tried to ramp first delivery and was bowled. Tom Moores did his best to get the Outlaws up to a competitive total, with both he and Matt Carter were dropped in the final over from Brown.

D'Oliveira got the Rapids reply off to a flier with four, six, four, four off successive balls from James, scoring 24 of the first 27 before Jack Haynes mistimed a Jake Ball delivery and was caught at mid on. Santner offered a straightforward return catch to Carter and then D'Oliveira picked out deep mid wicket in Calvin Harrison's first over.

Notts sensed they were back in the contest but the home side did not help their cause with some irresponsible shots. Kashif Ali aimed a mighty heave at Mullalley over the leg side and was bowled and then Ben Cox was bowled behind his legs sweeping at Harrison.

But Hose and Pollock kept calm, content to take the singles and pounce on loose deliveries to good effect. Pollock has endured a challenging campaign with the bat but, coming in at No. 7, showed his quality with several fine drives.