Hampshire Hawks 173-6 (20 overs) beat Sussex Sharks 144 (17.3 overs) by 29 runs
Liam Dawson grabbed a back-to-back half centuries before a miserly bowling return sent the Hampshire Hawks to a fourth straight victory in the Vitality Blast men’s competition.
Dawson followed his 76 against Surrey with an innings-saving 52 to give Hampshire a defendable 173-6.
The left-arm spinner then tied the Sussex Sharks middle-order in knots with 3-20, with Chris Wood and James Fuller picking up two wickets.
Teenager Manny Lumsden rounded things off to also take two as Hampshire moved four points clear at the summit of the South Group. Sussex stay bottom with a solitary win and three defeats in a row.
Everything that Tymal Mills touched in the early stages turned to gold as Sussex started both innings on top.
He won the toss, got every fielding adjustment perfect and got Hawks’ dangerman James Vince out in the second over.
Mills went for just 13 runs in his two powerplay overs but that was eclipsed by James Coles’s unmovable darts – which went for seven runs and yorked Toby Albert.
Tom Price and Danny Briggs backed those overs up by dismissing Tom Prest and Joe Weatherley – the former to a stunning caught and bowled – as Sussex suppressed the hosts to 42-4 after seven overs.
Dawson’s elevation to number 5 against Surrey saw him strike his first T20 fifty for three years. Another promotion saw identical results.
He swung his first ball for four into the legside and barely gave the bowlers a break from then on as he and Tristan Stubbs recalibrated the innings.
The pair put on 66 to boss the middle-overs, with Dawson reaching back-to-back fifties.
They had both gone by the end of the 17th over, Dawson to give Mills his second but Fuller and Hilton Cartwright lifted the Hawks to 173 with 37 runs in the final three overs.
The momentum stayed with the batters when the Sharks started their innings as Daniel Hughes pumped Fuller for 17 and then Harrison Ward took Scott Currie for the same two overs later.
Sussex clearly won the powerplay again, thumping 67, but a wicket with the last ball of the restrictions – Ward leg before to Fuller – started to send the momentum back towards Hampshire.
Where Fuller’s first 11 balls had been dispatched for 37, his next seven returned 2-3 – as he picked up Tom Alsop on his middle overs return.
Hughes and James Coles fell, caught off Manny Lumsden and wonderfully caught and bowled by Dawson, in successive balls to continue the Hawks taking control.
That turned to a dictatorship of the middle when Jack Leaning was stumped off Dawson and John Simpson was caught and bowled by Currie in quick-fire scalps.
Hampshire rounded things off in style as Wood had Price nicking off, Mills bowled to give Dawson his third before Lumsden castled Henry Crocombe to complete the 29-run win.
Hampshire Hawks batter Joe Weatherley: “It was a fantastic win to go four wins on the bounce. It was a tricky pitch which we struggled to adapt to but the guys got us to a competitive total.
“They started well with the bat but we clawed it back and it felt like a proper Hampshire home win.”
Head coach Paul Farbrace: “We weren’t good enough in any area really. We didn’t bowl too badly and would take 170 but you can’t field as poorly as we did tonight. We weren’t switched on.
“We might not be the greatest athletes but you’ve got to read the game to understand where you are fielding and what you are there for and what shots are coming your way.
“I think that is the worst fielding performance I’ve seen in my time at the club in a white-ball game.
“We got off to a fantastic start but from the moment Dan Hughes got out we were like rabbits in the headlights. Very poor decision-making, very poor under pressure. No one was calm enough to build a partnership and give ourselves a chance.
“We just kept giving away wickets. I can take it when you get bowled out by quality bowling but we just buckled under pressure. No one took it upon themselves to say they were going to be the man to win the game.
“I’m hugely disappointed, and I hope the players are disappointed as that was simply not good enough. We were a soft touch and basically let them tickle our bellies.”
