Spinners George Linde and Liam Patterson-White combined for 4/26 from six overs before Mohammad Ali bowled a precise final over to see Notts Outlaws to a heart-stopping two-run win over Durham at Banks Homes Riverside.
Put in, the visitors posted 166-8, with Joe Clarke making 56, before applying familiar pressure with the ball to ensure Durham, who at one point needed 27 off 18 with six wickets in hand, fell short.
After Ali had conceded only five off the 18th, and taken the wicket of Ollie Robinson, to bring that back up to 22 off 12, Mohammad Amir’s penultimate set of six left 11 to defend off the last.
Ali then executed his skills to perfection in conceding no boundaries and only nine runs in total, as David Bedingham failed to hit the last ball for the required four to tie.
The Outlaws had laid a platform for a large total in the first half of their innings, with second-wicket pair Clarke and Jack Haynes making light of the early loss of the in-form George Munsey.
The duo had put on 88 in 9.1 overs before Haynes was caught at square leg by Graham Clark off Kasey Aldridge for 37, though captain Clarke continued on serenely to notch his fifty in 29 balls.
Two Callum Parkinson wickets in the 13th over, including that of Clarke, reined the visitors in, as an impressive relay catch did for Tom Moores before the skipper fell to a Robinson stumping.
However, Linde, who hit a measured 21, and Benny Howell, who added 23, put on 38 for the sixth wicket to steady the ship before both fell to Matt Potts in the final over of the innings.
Those dismissals sandwiched the run out of Liam Patterson-White as Potts finished with 3/32 and Parkinson took 2/34.
At first, Durham’s reply almost mirrored their visitors’ effort as 58 runs were scored in the powerplay, before Linde made the first breakthrough when he had Clark caught by Munsey for 34.
Alex Lees and Ben McKinney had taken the score to 107-1, with the hosts in control, before Patterson-White forced a vital opening by bowling the former that the Outlaws took advantage of.
At the end of that over, Durham needed 58 off seven overs, and they were only able to add a further 14 across the next three, as well losing two further wickets, as Notts impressively fought their way back into the ascendancy.
Linde was involved in both of those, as he had McKinney held by Jack Haynes at deep midwicket for 26, before turning catcher himself, off Patterson-White, to remove Ben Raine for only one.
The rollercoaster contest threatened to have one final turning point when Amir’s third over, the innings’ 17th, cost 17, leaving that 27-run equation with three to go.
However, Amir found redemption when he claimed the catch that saw off Robinson, and from there, Durham fumbled the final stages as no boundaries came off the final 11 deliveries.
That was enough for Ali to close the game out, as Bedingham, needing to strike the last ball for five - or more realistically, six - to win or four to tie, found only two as the Outlaws sealed a record-equalling seventh consecutive win.
