Zak Chappell claimed three wickets, Wayne Madsen scored a half-century, but the Falcons were defeated by Lancashire Lightning.
Luke Wood claimed wickets with the first two deliveries of the Falcons innings, after his international team-mate Phil Salt top-scored with an opening 44 off 35 balls in Lancashire’s 178 for six.
He was supported by valuable contributions from England white-ball captain Jos Buttler with 23, Liam Livingstone’s 35 off 23 and Australian Ashton Turner’s late 31 not out, setting the Lightning up for their seventh win in nine North Group matches.
Their elevation to top spot in the table was then all but confirmed from the moment left-armer Wood ousted Caleb Jewell and Martin Andersson at the start of the Falcons’ reply, which stuttered to 136 for six despite Wayne Madsen’s entertaining 53 off 40 balls. Wood finished with an excellent three for 25.
This was bottom-side Derbyshire’s seventh defeat in nine.
Unfortunately, Livingstone suffered a suspected hamstring injury and needed to use captain Keaton Jennings as a runner from 23 onwards.
Earlier, Livingstone became the 12th Englishman to reach 7,000 career runs in T20 cricket. Two others in that dozen include Buttler and Salt.
Lightning raced out of the blocks and were in a position to potentially swamp the Falcons at 124 for two after 13 overs.
Salt and Livingstone had just taken a six apiece off Pat Brown’s seam, and they shared 68 in seven overs for the third wicket from 65 for two early in the eighth over when Buttler departed caught and bowled off Samit Patel’s left-arm spin.
Opener Jennings, who hit 22, had taken four fours off Ben Aitchison’s seam in the second over of the match having been inserted.
Derbyshire limited the damage impressively during the final seven overs, which saw pacer Zak Chappell remove both Salt and Livingstone caught at deep cover en-route to an excellent four for 23.
Lancashire started this fixture, at 3pm, having only returned home at 3.45am from their winning trip to Northampton last night following issues on the M1.
But there was no signs of rust.
In fact, with four wickets falling in succession at the end of the Northamptonshire innings last night, including a Saqib Mahmood hat-trick, Lancashire had struck six times in six balls combining that with Wood’s double strike early here.
Wood had opener Jewell caught at first slip and then bowled Martin Andersson with a sumptuous in-swinging yorker.
The first-ball wicket even won a lucky couple in the crowd a Dubai holiday as part of Lancashire’s Fly Emirates sponsorship.
Wood later had opener Aneurin Donald caught at short fine-leg trying to ramp – 28 for three after five overs.
Wood also helped the leg-spin of Luke Wells remove Brooke Guest with a smart catch at long-on.
Madsen reached 50 off 36 balls with back-to-back swept sixes off Wells, but he sliced a full toss to cover as one of two 14th-over wickets for Australian off-spinner Chris Green as the score fell to 86 for six.
Chappell finished with a belligerent 34 not out to cap a handy personal performance which went unrewarded.
