Another polished display with the ball and in the field from Yorkshire against Nottinghamshire, followed by an unbeaten half-century from Phil Jaques, helped to set up the victory at Trent Bridge that secures the Tykes’ place in the quarter-finals of the Friends Life t20 for only the third time.

Yorkshire’s fielding has been a major factor in their successful run through this season’s North Division, a table which they now lead by two points with two matches left after chasing down 149 with six wickets in hand and with 14 balls to spare.

After Adam Voges elected to bat, Azeem Rafiq’s men did not quite match their landmark fielding display against Leicestershire at Grace Road last month when they effected four run-outs. But it was not far behind.

A trio of notable mis-fields from Joe Root, Adam Lyth and Iain Wardlaw aside, they pressured Notts expertly as Rich Pyrah and Mitchell Starc were the pick of the bowlers with figures of 1-20 and 1-21 respectively to help restrict the hosts’ score to 148-6 in good batting conditions.

Man-of-the-match Jaques then anchored the chase with a season’s best 58 not out off 47 balls.

Not surprisingly, left-arm paceman Starc took his wicket in the final over of the innings – ten of his 16 wickets this campaign have come that way – and skipper Rafiq also added 2-33, his figures damaged by an expensive last over.

Voges top-scored with 70 runs off 57 balls, but he was not backed up by any of his team-mates after Root had Rikki Wessels caught at mid-wicket by Pyrah with the very first ball of the match.

By contrast, Lyth hit Graeme White’s left-arm spin for three fours in the first four balls of Yorkshire’s chase as 13 came off the first over.

Lyth holed out off Steven Mullaney’s medium pace for 33 in the seventh, but it was only a minor blip as Root swept Samit Patel for four and reverse-swept the same bowler and Mullaney to the fence in his first six balls. Root (27), Jonny Bairstow and David Miller all then fell to Patel, White and Voges respectively within the space of 14 balls to leave the score at 107-4 in the 14th over and put a few jitters into the visiting dressing room.

But they were short-lived as Jaques and Gary Ballance shared an unbroken stand of 43 in 3.5 overs for the fifth wicket.

It all means the Tykes can go into tonight’s Roses clash against Lancashire at Old Trafford with their tails up.