AN unbeaten century from Callum Ferguson strengthened Worcestershire Rapids' position at the top of the North Group of the Vitality Blast.

Ferguson scored 102 not out from 56 balls with 10 fours and two sixes as Rapids defeated Notts Outlaws by 72 runs at Trent Bridge.

The South Australian’s first T20 hundred helped his side to 206-2 with Moeen Ali making 65.

Skipper Moeen opted to bat first upon winning the toss and helped Ferguson add 135 for the second wicket to take the match away from the defending champions.

Notts, bolstered by the return from injury of Alex Hales, lost early wickets and were always fighting against a sharply-rising run-rate and were dismissed for only 134 in 17.2 overs.

Wayne Parnell took 3-20 and Pat Brown, the leading wicket-taker in the competition, took 3-21.

Earlier, Rapids lost Joe Clarke in the second over with Harry Gurney taking a sharp caught and bowled offering to bring Ferguson to the crease.

The 33-year old, who scored two centuries for Rapids in the Royal London One-Day Cup earlier in the campaign, rarely played a false stroke as he raced to his 50 from 31 deliveries.

Moeen was going even quicker at the other end, racing to his 50 from only 29 deliveries faced with three of the balls being clubbed for huge sixes.

The hosts used seven bowlers in an attempt to stem the flow of boundaries but were only given a lift when Moeen sliced Ish Sodhi high to point in the 15th over.

Ross Whiteley applied further punishment, bludgeoning his way to 32 not out from only 18 balls.

Hales, out through a side injury since July 8, hit both of his first two deliveries for four as Notts began their pursuit of 207.

He only made 11, however, before hoisting Parnell to mid-off.

Riki Wessels was a little unlucky, caught superbly by a one-handed grab from Parnell from Daryl Mitchell’s bowling.

Brown struck as soon as he entered the attack, having Tom Moores caught in the deep and it became a bit of procession after that although Steven Mullaney registered his first half-century of this year’s competition.

He reached the landmark from only 26 balls but then failed to beat a throw from the deep by Ed Barnard and was run out for 58.

Moeen completed a fine all-round match by removing Samit Patel and Dan Christian cheaply to take figures of 2-25 and he then caught successive blows off Jake Libby and Billy Root to give Brown his 19th and 20th wickets of the campaign.

Parnell closed out the contest by bowling Luke Fletcher and then had Gurney caught behind to lift Rapids three points clear at the top of the table.

Notts, quarter-finalists in seven of the last eight seasons, dropped to sixth and are in danger of not qualifying for the knockout stages.

Moeen said: “It was a great performance from us. I just said to the boys to go out there and play our best cricket and if we do that we’ll have a good chance.

"After the first few overs we knew it was going to be difficult to score runs but we had a great partnership.

"We knew if we got out it would be so much harder for anyone else coming in so we wanted to keep on batting for longer and longer.

“I was a bit lucky but Fergie was outstanding. He kept finding the boundaries to take pressure off me.”