ADAM Lyth continued his excellent run of form with a career best 87 to boost Yorkshire’s NatWest T20 Blast quarter-final hopes with a record-breaking win over Durham at Headingley tonight.

The Vikings posted 223-6, their highest ever 20-over score, before the Jets, one of their rivals for a top-four place in the North Group, responded with 174-8.

Yorkshire’s innings included eleven sixes and 20 fours, with Lyth hitting three maximums in his 54-ball innings.

David Willey, Travis Head and Jack Leaning all supported Lyth with blistering knocks of 32, 34 and 32 as Durham dropped seven catches of varying difficulty.

The Jets started their chase with 17 runs off Tim Bresnan’s first over, but they could not maintain the assault as they slipped to a 49-run defeat.

Spin duo Karl Carver and Azeem Rafiq were key in Yorkshire’s defence with 3-40 and 2-27 from four overs respectively, while Liam Plunkett took 1-13 from his four.

The two teams are now level on 12 points with two group matches to play, with Durham in fourth place courtesy of a superior net run-rate.

If Yorkshire can win their last two group games against leaders Northamptonshire, starting with the clash at Headingley on Friday, they should qualify.

Lyth, 28, has now produced innings of real substance in all three formats inside the last six weeks.

He scored two hundreds in two days against Northamptonshire and Lancashire in 50-over cricket last month before last week’s Championship double century against Surrey at the Oval.

Here, he raced out of the blocks with three fours against left-arm seamer Jamie Harrison in the second over and underpinned a six-over power play of 77-1 after Yorkshire won the toss.

Lyth hit nine fours in a 32-ball fifty before hitting his three sixes to pass a previous high-score of 78.

Willey and Australian overseas star Head gave the 8,000 strong crowd a glimpse of why they are regarded as two of the most powerful T20 batsmen at the moment with two sixes apiece.

But Leaning’s eleven-ball effort with three sixes was most encouraging, especially given that he has been searching for form of late.

He hit successive leg-side maximums off Bradford-born seamer Usman Arshad, whose 0-63 from four overs equalled Durham’s most expensive ever bowling spell in this format.

Yorkshire’s total was also only one run away from equalling the most Durham have conceded in this format.

The visitors made Yorkshire think in the early stages of their chase.

They had posted 52-2 in the first six overs, with wickets for Willey and Plunkett.

And it was only when Carver struck twice in his first four balls in the eighth over that Yorkshire had really gained a stranglehold on the game with Durham at 68-4.

He had Phil Mustard caught at long-on with his first ball before Gordon Muchall hit the next two balls for straight sixes.

The next ball, Muchall chipped straight to Bresnan at mid-wicket.

Rafiq had Keaton Jennings brilliantly caught at long-on by a diving Plunkett and Ryan Pringle stumped by Andrew Hodd, leaving the score at 114-7 in the 15th over.

Even Willey being taken out of the attack after 3.5 overs of his allocation for bowling two waist-high full tosses did not hurt Yorkshire.