Notts Outlaws must beat Sussex Sharks on Sunday to keep their NatWest Pro40 challenge alive after the final-ball dismissal of Charlie Shreck brought the curtain down on a single-run defeat against Lancashire.
Needing 47 from the final six overs, Andre Adams and Mark Ealham accelerated the run rate but when Ealham miss-judged a straight ball from Smith, it was left to Adams to find 12 from the final over. After a swing and a miss, he was caught by Lou Vincent on the boundary on the second ball.
Pattinson’s six off ball three, a dot ball and a Charlie Shreck single left Pattinson needing a boundary to secure victory and although his high slog landed safely, it resulted in the run-out of tail-ender Shreck.
The Notts run chase had begun fluently with Will Jefferson reaching 19 before he was run out and fellow opener Graeme Swann made solid progress.
Swann brought up his fifty with a straight six beyond Tom Smith and hit two further boundaries before going airborne to Steven Croft at mid-wicket.
Mark Wagh was caught behind off Smith for 9 and Samit Patel and Ashwell Prince were also dismissed for single figures.
Bilal Shafayat made a slow seven before falling to a return catch from Gary Keedy and when Read was caught behind for 24, the Outlaws needed Ealham and Adams to make telling contributions.
“We can play so much better than that and produce more runs from the top six,” said Notts batting coach Paul Johnson.
“We only got one score in the top six and it shouldn’t be left to the lower order to win games.
“I thought that Lancs had momentum and unfortunately the wickets towards the end meant that we couldn’t follow it through to the finale that we would have liked.”
Vincent’s catch made amends for a poor start with the bat having faced just two balls from Darren Pattinson before edging to Chris Read and when Stuart Law dragged one on to the stumps, the visitors were stranded on 26-2.
Karl Brown’s 41 helped Lancs to progress to 61 before he was caught by substitute fielder Matt Wood but they sank to 74-5 when Andre Adams had Paul Horton lbw.
Francois du Plessis (31), Gareth Cross (18) and Kyle Hogg (6) made late runs before falling to Samit Patel but Steven Croft’s unbeaten 68 from 66 balls helped the visitors to 202-8 off 40 overs.