Brutal Yorkshire show pedigree by securing home quarter-final

Lyth, with a competition-best 78, and Jaques, with 64, butchered the bowling as Yorkshire totalled 180-5 after being sent into bat.

Rana Naved-ul-Hasan, the former Yorkshire all-rounder, almost pulled the game from the fire, blitzing an unbeaten 40 from 22 balls with four sixes as Derbyshire replied with 159-9.

But Yorkshire kept their nerve to top the North Group with seven victories from 10 games, with two no-results and only one defeat.

It was a fitting way to round off a group campaign in which Yorkshire have produced arguably their best cricket for many a year.

It may “only” be Twenty20, and not particularly significant to some Yorkshire members, but credit must be given to players and coaches for the way the team have performed so far.

Yorkshire are now only one win from shaking off the tag of being one of only three counties – Derbyshire and Worcestershire the others – never to have reached Finals Day.

However, they are not simply capable of going to Cardiff on August 25; they are capable of winning their first domestic tournament since 2002.

Beneath a generally overcast sky, this match began in deceptive fashion.

Lyth failed to score from the opening three balls, bowled by Wes Durston, who extracted prodigious off-spin from the Rugby Stand end.

Only 10 runs arrived from Durston’s first two overs, with Lyth and Jaques struggling to penetrate the inner ring, before the batsmen spectacularly found their stride.

Having scored 18 runs from the first three overs, the openers doubled that tally in the fourth over, bowled by Jonathan Clare, which laid the foundation for a formidable score.

Lyth proved you do not have to hit the cover off the ball in this form of the game as he caressed Clare for successive fours through cover-point, while Jaques also took consecutive fours off Clare when he bludgeoned him through the covers and then chopped him through point.

Another brace of off-side boundaries by Lyth off Tim Groenewald saw Yorkshire to 57-0 from the opening six overs of power play. At that stage, Derbyshire looked every inch a team whose hopes of reaching the quarter-finals had long been extinguished.

Sluggish in the field and erratic with the ball, they appeared short of ideas and perhaps motivation.

Durston returned to bowl another good over, though, the seventh of the innings, from which only four runs arrived before Lyth greeted Rana’s arrival by whacking his first ball for six over mid-wicket to the foot of the East Stand.

It was the biggest boundary on the field but Lyth timed the ball so sweetly that the shot was effected with a minimum of effort.

Durston leaked only seven runs from his final over, the ninth of the innings, to finish with 0-21 from four overs.

It was a commendable effort by the 31-year-old all-rounder, whose figures stood out like a blackboard in a snowstorm.

Lyth went to fifty from 34 balls with seven fours and a six and celebrated by lofting medium-pacer Alex Knight for another maximum over square-leg.

The century stand arrived from just 70 balls, Lyth’s contribution of 69 taking him past his previous tournament best of 59 against Worcestershire at Headingley in 2010.

Jaques scooped successive deliveries from Alex Hughes past the wicketkeeper for four as he reached his own half-century from 34 balls with eight fours.

The pair eased past Yorkshire’s previous highest opening Twenty20 stand of 116 by Jaques and Andrew Gale against Leicestershire at Headingley earlier this year.

From 120-0 off 13 overs, Yorkshire should probably have reached 200, but Derbyshire did well to peg them back.

Chesney Hughes set the tone by conceding only two runs from the 14th over before he finally achieved the breakthrough by dismissing Lyth with the opening delivery of the 16th over.

Lyth got the elevation but not the distance as he was caught at deep mid-wicket by Durston having faced 51 balls and struck nine fours and two sixes.

The partnership was just six runs short of Yorkshire’s record for any wicket in Twenty20, compiled by Gale and Herschelle Gibbs against Durham at Headingley in 2010.

Jaques fell in the next over, caught at deep mid-wicket by Alex Hughes off Tom Knight for 64, made from 47 balls with 10 fours.

Ballance was caught and bowled, David Miller held at backward square-leg and Rich Pyrah pouched at point.

Seventeen runs arrived from the final over, bowled by Rana, including a huge six by Joe Root over mid-wicket that ricocheted around the empty blue seats in the West Stand.

Derbyshire’s target, already daunting, was quickly rendered exceedingly difficult.

Usman Khawaja was caught behind, Durston bowled walking across his stumps, Wayne Madsen caught and bowled, Chesney Hughes run-out, Clare stumped off a leg-side wide and Alex Hughes lbw as the visitors slipped to 99-6 in the 14th over.

Rana and Garry Park added 55 runs from 27 balls, including 24 from one over by Pyrah, but Moin Ashraf and Mitchell Starc returned with important wickets as Yorkshire expertly closed out the win.

Mitchell Starc has been called up by Australia as cover during the remainder of the NatWest Series while they assess Brett Lee and Shane Watson’s calf injuries. Starc, 22, last played for his country in the Test series against West Indies three months ago