Birmingham 99 for 3 (Davies 51*, Yates 30) beat Lancashire Lightning 98 (Briggs 4-15, Mousley 4-13) by seven wickets

Birmingham Bears prolonged their 100 per cent begin to the Vitality Blast and ended Lancashire Lightning's with a commanding seven-wicket victory in entrance of a sun-soaked 11,243 crowd at Edgbaston.

Lightning desperately wanted to strike early when the Bears replied however openers Alex Davies (51 not out, 39 balls - his maiden Blast fifty for the Bears) and Rob Yates (30, 24 balls) added an untroubled 50 by the seventh over to arrange a victory stroll. The Bears reached 99 for 3 with 34 balls to spare.

"We didn't really sense that this was going to be a game for the slow bowlers but we talk about being adaptable because so much depends on who can adapt quickest," Mousley stated. "Maxy got the early wicket and then we thought, 'okay. it's going to offer a bit of assistance to the spinners' and we took advantage of that.

"I really like bowling and taking part in away within the ILT20 final winter I simply realized as a lot as I might by bowling to a few of the greatest gamers on this planet. It made me realise that I'm truly okay at it and I've introduced that confidence again right here."

With Phil Salt ruled out by a back spasm, Josh Bohannon came into the Lightning side to open the batting but perished fourth ball, bowled through a mow at Glenn Maxwell. Luke Wells, scorer of a match-winning 66 against Derbyshire Falcons on this ground nine days earlier, fell in the next over to a superb return catch, clutched centimetres from the ground, by Mousley.

Croft bashed 18 from four balls from Henry Brookes to get the innings going momentarily but the bowler gained his revenge when he was waiting at square leg to accept a catch when Croft lifted a sweep at Mousley. That was 62 for three and from that point the Lightning fell in a heap in the face of fine spin bowling backed up by brilliant fielding.

Mousley switched ends to bowl the dangerous Liam Livingstone first ball back. Chris Benjamin took a stinging slip catch to prevent Colin de Grandhomme damaging his former team. Mousley made a steepling catch at long off from Daryl Mitchell look simple and Rob Yates took a blinder at extra cover to oust Luke Wood.

Wood was the second of Briggs' four victims as he plucked off the tail with three wickets in four balls and Lightning committed the heinous T20 crime of leaving 31 balls unused.

Faced with such a meagre target. Yates allowed himself the Blast luxury of a leave, first ball, and the Bears openers killed the game dead with a stand 50 of in 39 balls. Yates top-edged a sweep at Matt Parkinson to short fine leg and Maxwell's home debut knock yielded only two from three balls before he missed an attempt to carve Hartley through the off side, but it was already game over.

Sam Hain reached the crease facing one of the less exerting equations he has faced over the years - 37 needed from 74 balls with eight wickets in hand. He was soon bowled by Wells' third ball but Davies advanced smoothly to his 16th Blast half-century and the captain eased his side home to the jubilation of most in the big crowd, though you got the feeling a fair few of them would have swapped the cakewalk for a more gripping contest in perfect Bank Holiday weather.

With three wins from four, Lancashire's head coach, Glen Chapple, was philosophical. "We misplaced three wickets to superb catches and throw in a little bit of unhealthy luck and earlier than you already know it you are six down. We're not going to dwell on it, we're simply going to crack on."