Ben Stokes scored a whirlwind one-day best 164 not out as Durham reached the final of the Royal London Cup.
The England all-rounder, who played in his country’s one-day international victory over India yesterday, featured in a 135-run partnership in 141 balls with Phil Mustard, coming in with Durham on 92 for three, and bowing out 253 runs later when he holed out to Michael Lumb to give Ajmal Shahzad his third wicket.
His 164 was his highest one-day score, and helped Durham to 353 for eight off their 50 overs - their record total in 50-overs competition. Stokes struck 18 fours and six sixes in the 113 balls he faced.
Mustard was run out for 89 in a well-paced innings that provided the foundation for Stokes’s fireworks.
For a team facing such a daunting total, at a required run rate of more than seven an over, Nottinghamshire made the worst of starts. Lumb and Steven Mullaney, the openers, were back in the pavilion within 4.1 overs with only 21 on the board.
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James Taylor did his best to keep Nottinghamshire in the match, maintaining his fine form with his own century, but with wickets falling regularly around him, they were never in with a realistic chance of keeping up with the ever-rising required run rate.
Taylor, who is in the England squad for tomorrow’s Twenty20 international against India, reached his century off exactly 100 balls, and fittingly, it was Stokes, the man of the match, who eventually claimed his scalp, having him caught by Keaton Jennings for 114 to clinch Durham’s 83-run victory and take the county to Lord’s on September 20, where they will face Birmingham Bears.