Hampshire warm up for Vitality Blast quarter-final with ninth South group win in 10 matches – as south coast rivals Sussex lose again

For their El Classicoast rivals, it was an eighth defeat in their last nine T20 games.

The only surprise was that Sussex took the game to the final over. Hampshire looked on course for a more comfortable victory when prolific captain James Vince and Ben McDermott put on 86 for the first wicket, striking at ten runs an over.

But Hampshire’s batting faltered after Vince skied Delray Rawlins to the keeper for a 42-ball 65 - taking his seasonal total in the tournament to 622 - no-one has scored more - at 56.54.

After the powerplay, some tight bowling from Rashid Khan and Ravi Bopara and a flurry of middle order wickets left the visitors needing 43 off the final five overs and then 39 off the last three.

When that boiled down to 19 off two, Sussex were still in the game. But when George Garton was called up to bowl the penultimate over, Ross Whiteley and James Fuller thumped it for 15.

That meant leg-spinner Will Beer was on a hiding to nothing when he was called up to bowl the last over, in his last game for the club, with just four runs needed. Fuller cracked the first delivery over midwicket to the boundary.

The match was something of a dead rubber as Hampshire had already qualified for the quarter-finals, while Sussex were out of the competition. For that reason Tom Alsop, originally signed on loan from Hampshire - but recently signed on a permanent basis - was given special permission to play, though ultimately illness meant he was not available.

The Sussex innings was full of cameos. They lost powerplay wickets and after five overs had reached only 28-2. In the second over the recently prolific Ali Orr skied Brad Wheal to Vince at mid-on. Then Josh Philippe lost his middle stump playing on to Chris Wood, who swung the ball in unpromising conditions.

Sussex red ball captain Tom Haines, playing his first T20 game of the season, and Harrison Ward took 21 off the sixth over, but then Ward lofted Tom Prest to long on and Haines was stumped charging a googly from Mason Crane.

Rawlins swatted two sixes in a 22-ball 29 and Bopara made 35 off 25.

The most entertaining batting came at the end. Garton top-scored with 37 off just 17 deliveries, with three fours and three sixes, one a vast one over long-on. And Khan scored a typically unorthodox 25 off a dozen balls. Somehow, Sussex had scrambled together a competitive score.

Fuller – who has scored 265 runs and taken 16 wickets in the group stage, emerging as one of his side’s key performers - said: ‘It was important to win the game to keep our momentum going into the quarter-finals.

‘Winning is a habit and we want to keep that habit. We were hitting the ball so well it looked like we might get it done in 15 overs but you can never really think that way when you’ve got a bowler like Rashid Khan to contend with.’

Hampshire, through to the quarter-finals for the ninth time in 13 seasons, now travel to Edgbaston this Thursday to play Birmingham (6.30pm).

Elsewhere in the last eight, South group winners Surrey host Yorkshire on Wednesday, Lancashire will entertain Essex on Friday and Somerset will host Derbyshire on Saturday.

The Finals Day takes place, as usual, at Edgbaston on Saturday, July 16.