Mark Wagh played down his performance in helping Notts Outlaws beat Worcestershire in the Friends Provident Trophy - but got plenty of praise from Director of Cricket Mick Newell.

Friends Provident Trophy

May 6: Worcestershire Royals v Notts Outlaws

Royals 234-8 (Ealham 3-27)

Outlaws 235-3 (Hussey 88, Wagh 68*)

Notts Outlaws won by seven wickets

Scorecard

Wagh combined with captain David Hussey to produce a third-wicket stand of 151 and hit the winning runs with nine balls to spare.

But he was prepared to give Hussey all the credit and said: "I didn't have to do too much really, as Huss was playing beautifully. I knocked it around and gave him the strike as much as possible.

"With the wicket offering so much turn I thought we might have a tough task on our hands to chase as Worcestershire had two spinners in their side.

"But as it turned out, with Huss batting as well as he was, we could probably have dealt with a bigger total."

On a slow, turning wicket, Worcestershire chose to bat after winning the toss but apart from star batsman Phil Jaques, struggled to get on top of the Notts attack.

Jaques made an impressive hundred but received little support from his team-mates with Mark Ealham showing all his experience to bowl two maidens and pick up three wickets from his 10 overs.

Spin also proved a useful asset, with Graeme Swann claiming 1-35 from his allocation and Samit Patel picking up the crucial wickets of Vikram Solanki caught at long-on and Ben Smith caught and bowled in consecutive overs.

In reply, openers Bilal Shafayat and Jason Gallian got things started quickly before Wagh settled in with Hussey.

The Aussie began slowly before hitting two sixes off one Solanki over, followed by another straight six off Ray Price.

The 150 partnership came up off 177 balls and although Hussey then holed out with 10 needed, Wagh clipped the first ball of the penultimate over to the long-on boundary and then hit four over cover to end the match.

Newell was delighted with the team's performance and said: "It was a very good effort and I felt that Worcester's score was a reasonable one given the quality of the pitch, which was far from ideal for a one-day game.

"But the partnership between Wagh and Hussey was a very important one, and they controlled the tempo very well, considering that the best time to score quickly was early one when the ball was hard.

"They've both been doing well in the competition and hopefully that will continue against Warwickshire at the weekend."