A batting shambles by Yorkshire Phoenix resulted in them going down by 30 runs in their Twenty20 Cup match against Lancashire Lightning in front of a 15,215 crowd at Old Trafford tonight.

Defeat was a bitter pill to swallow after their bowlers had done a great job in restricting Lancashire to 143 for nine but Yorkshire never came to terms with either the slow pitch or the quality of the Red Rose bowling and they crumbled to 113 all out in 18.4 overs.

The only batsman to offer any real resistance was Jacques Rudolph, who came in at 43 for three and ended unbeaten on 48 from 38 balls with three fours and a six, but the South African got off to a slow start and never had anyone to keep him company for long.

Yorkshire have now collected only one point from two defeats and a no result' and they probably need to win all five of their remaining group matches if they are to stand any chance at all of progressing to the quarter-finals.

Craig White was first to go, driving Kyle Hogg to Brad Hodge at deep mid-off but Yorkshire still looked favourites to win as Gerard Brophy and Tim Bresnan, who was pushed up the order, added 29 together in four overs.

The slide began quickly, however, and it started when Brophy tried to scoop a ball from Hogg round the corner where it was caught by Steven Croft.

Then medium-pacer Tom Smith took three wickets in 15 balls at a cost of eight runs to leave Yorkshire in disarray. His first ball shattered Bres-nan's stumps and he got rid of Andrew Gale and Chris Gilbert with consecutive deliveries.

Anthony McGrath was caught on the square leg boundary off the canny Gary Keedy, who gave away only 13 runs in three overs with his left-arm spin, and it was left to Sanath Jayasuriya to do most of the mopping up with three wickets for 20 runs in three overs.

Jayasuriya had more success with the ball than the bat because the Sri Lankan fell to a well-judged boundary catch by Bresnan in Darren Gough's first over after Lancashire had won the toss.

But Mal Loye and Hodge took command with a 65 stand in seven overs, Loye hitting Gough over square leg for six and smacking his next ball to the extra cover boundary.

It was when Richard Pyrah and debutant David Wain-wright joined the attack that Lancashire got into difficulties, Pyrah dismissing Loye for 38 to a sensational boundary catch at long off by Gilbert, who seemed to have lost the ball in the sun and then flung his arms above his head to hold on to it.

Wainwright also held a fine boundary catch off Stuart Law to bring Pyrah a second wicket and although Wainwright did not pick up a wicket himself he bowled with admirable control, only 22 runs coming off his four overs.

Lancashire panicked in the second half of their innings and three of their batsmen were run out but their final total proved to be far better than it appeared at the time.