Sussex Sharks secured a home quarter-final in the Vitality Blast after thrashing Middlesex by nine wickets in front of a sell-out crowd at Hove tonight (Friday 19 July).
They leapfrogged Somerset, who lost heavily to Glamorgan in Cardiff, to go back into second place after securing a ninth win in the South Group.
They will host the team that finishes third in the North Group in the last eight when the competition resumes in September.
The pitch at the 1st Central County Ground was being used for the third time but Middlesex’s 159-9 never looked like being enough.
The conditions were put into perspective by Sussex openers Harrison Ward and the Australian left-hander Daniel Hughes, who put on 141 in 15.1 overs, Sussex’s fourth highest stand for any wicket in T20.
Hughes is now the top scorer in what is his debut season in the Blast after taking his aggregate to 560 runs with an unbeaten 96.
Ward, who was drafted into the Hundred for the first time with the Oval Invincibles earlier in the day, celebrated by easing to his third half-century in this season’s competition.
Apart from a mix-up which nearly ended in Hughes being run out, the Sussex pair did much as they pleased until Ward was caught at deep mid-wicket for 56 (42 balls, 5 fours, 1 six).
Hughes faced just 54 balls and hit 12 fours and three sixes – the third to win the game with 22 deliveries to spare as he equalled his T20 career-best with his fourth fifty.
Some disciplined bowling had set Sussex up. They had reduced Middlesex to 22-3 by the third over with Ollie Robinson picking up a wicket with the first ball of his first two overs.
The dangerous Leus du Plooy was superbly caught at short-cover by Hughes, and Danny Lamb produced an even better effort to remove Max Holden, flinging himself to his left to hang on to a full-blooded slash at backward point.
Later in the same over Lamb put down a much more straightforward chance to reprieve Jack Davies on nought and had to go off with an injury to his right shoulder.
It left Sussex a bowler light but slow left-armer James Coles (2 for 28) and off-spinner Jack Carson (2 for 23) strangled Middlesex’s attempts to accelerate although Davies celebrated his reprieve by making 52.
Davies hit four boundaries in an over off Scott Currie and also swiped three sixes but Carson got him in the 14th over courtesy of one of three catches on the mid-wicket boundary by Tom Clark.
Luke Hollman made 28 at the end but Hughes and Ward soon had Sussex’s chase under control as Middlesex finished another disappointing campaign second from bottom after winning just three games.
