Nottinghamshire Outlaws lifted their first piece of silverware of the new season when they defeated the Sussex Sharks by eight wickets in the final of the Emirates Airline T20 Cup in Dubai.

Samit Patel’s quickfire 76 not out cemented the win to bring a victorious end to their nine day tour.

After their skipper, Chris Nash, had won the toss and elected to bat, the Sharks ran up 141-5 from their twenty overs with Joe Gatting top scoring with 34.

Paul Franks, Samit Patel and Steven Mullaney each took a wicket, whilst the fielding unit again excelled with another couple of run outs.

The Outlaws elected to stick with the same team that had defeated the MCC by three wickets in the earlier semi final, so Akhil Patel remained inactive, along with Brett Hutton.

Luke Fletcher, continuing his fine tour form, began the match with a tidy maiden to Luke Wells, who perished shortly afterwards when a direct hit from Paul Franks at mid on ran him out.

Former Kiwi international Lou Vincent tried to up the tempo but drove Franks firmly into the hands of Alex Hales to leave the Sharks on 31-2 after five overs.

Chris Nash and Joe Gatting took it on to 66-2 at the halfway stage of the innings but were parted by Steven Mullaney when Nash hoisted to deep square leg where Hales took his second fine catch of the innings.

Joe Gatting made 34 before falling to Patel and Ben Brown didn’t pay enough respect to the arm of Scott Elstone as the youngster fired in from third man as they tried to come back for two.

Some late hitting, including a maximum by Andrew Hodd off the final ball of the innings, boosted the Sharks total up to 141-5, which, on a well-worn slow wicket, threatened to be challenging.

With the floodlights on, a streaky boundary, fine of the wicket, got Neil Edwards and the Outlaws reply under way and he capitalised with a couple of well-executed on-drives before falling to Amjad Khan for 14.

Patel hit his first two deliveries for boundaries and Alex Hales copied suit in the next over to bring the team fifty up from 36 deliveries.

The introduction of Monty Panesar met with the approval of Patel who lifted him high and straight for a huge six to move the total on to 75-1 off 10 overs and the pair continued to attack before Hales fell for 44 from 35 deliveries to make the score 94-2 after 13 overs.

Kirk Wernars twice and Panesar again, went the distance, as Samit raced to his half century from 34 balls with 4 x 4’s and 4 x 6’s.

The winning runs came in the 18th over as Patel finished on 76 not out from just 45 balls faced. In all he hit six fours to add to the six times he cleared the ropes.

Earlier the Outlaws had defeated the MCC by seven wickets in their semi final whilst the Sharks secured their place in the Final with a nine wicket victory over the Durham Dynamos.

Dave Bracegirdle will provide ball-by-ball commentary on Nottinghamshire's LV=County Championship season on behalf of BBC Radio Nottingham.