Mick Newell was quick to praise spinner Rob Ferley after the 25-year-old showed nerves of steel to bowl the Outlaws to victory in a tense match with Yorkshire Phoenix.

Notts Outlaws 149-9 (Shafayat 31, Patel 21, Hussey 20)
Yorkshire Phoenix 145-5 (Swann 2-39)

Notts Outlaws won by four runs
Scorecard

With Yorkshire requiring 12 off the final over, Ferley conceded just seven and secured the win in front of 11,122 people at Trent Bridge.

Notts only scored 149 on a turning wicket but it proved just enough to hold off the visitors, despite 55 from Anthony McGrath.

With boundaries hard to come by once the fielding restrictions were lifted after six overs, Notts lost several wickets to rash strokes before consolidating with a 50-run partnership for the fifth wicket between David Hussey and top-scorer Bilal Shafayat.

That pushed the score past 100 and although there was a late flurry of wickets, the total was still regarded as defendable by Newell, who said: "We were playing on the pitch for the third time and had a good understanding of what we could work with.

"At about the 12th over I felt we should be aiming for 150 and that proved just enough in the end."

Yorkshire were put under immediate pressure with the loss of two wickets in two overs, as Simon Francis removed Gerard Brophy lbw and then ran out Tim Bresnan.

Craig White gave Graeme Swann a return catch and Ferley claimed McGrath's scalp in the 16th over just as the former England international was looking to accelerate with Jacques Rudolph.

And with Andrew Gale unable to get Ferley's left-arm spin away for the required boundaries, Newell was able to reflect on his side's fourth win in five as they continued to demonstrate the form that got them to the 2006 final.

He added: "That was a low-scoring but interesting game and I think one of the reasons we won was that we managed to get runs off almost every ball.

"We ran the ones and twos hard and didn't face too many dot balls, which in the end proved crucial.

"It was far from the perfect game, as we did some pretty ordinary things, particularly with the bat.

"But Rob deserves a hell of a lot of credit for showing his capabilities in a pressure situation like that.

"He had prepared and practiced for a situation like that and I'm pleased that he's demonstrated his talents so well in front of 11,000 people."

The result maintains Notts position at the top of the North Group and leaves them strongly placed to claim a home tie in the quarter-finals.