Sussex Sharks v Kent Spitfires

Former Sussex all-rounder Yasir Arafat returned to Hove to put in a five-star performance with bat and ball to help ease Kent to a 50-run win with three overs to spare against the Sharks and with it a place in the Twenty20 Cup quarter finals for the third successive season.

Arafat top-scored with a quick-fire 42 in Kent’s marginally disappointing total of 162-9 and then excelled with the ball to remove the hosts’ three main batting dangers; Murray Goodwin, Matt Prior and Dwayne Smith in the space of two overs.

With Arafat racing in from the Sea End, his old county were on the rocks and sinking fast within 31 balls at they slid to 34-4 with Arafat taking 3-12 in 12 balls.

He plucked out Goodwin’s leg stump for eight as the little Zimbabwean aimed leg-side then, in his next over, he had Prior (3) caught at mid-off from a leading edge then Arafat trapped Smith leg before without scoring as the West Indian all-rounder advanced down the pitch aiming to drive.

Robbie Joseph, making his cup debut for Spitfires in place of the injured Simon Cook, then struck with his first ball in the competition by having acting Sharks’ skipper Michael Yardy (26) caught on the hook at deep mid-wicket by Darren Stevens.

In his next over Joseph had Ben Brown (6) caught behind by Geraint Jones after the right-hander opened the face in trying to run the ball down to third man.

Sussex lost their sixth wicket in the ninth over when Carl Hopkinson (2) drove hard at Ryan McLaren only to be superbly caught by the bowler as he followed through.

Joseph took centre stage again when he collected off his own bowling, swiveled and threw down the stumps at the non-striker’s end to run out Andrew Hodd for 11.

Kent secured another run out when Rory Hamilton-Brown called Will Beer (3) through for an impossibly sharp single, only to see Jones run round from behind the stumps and throw to James Tredwell who completed the dismissal.

So 60 were needed from the last five overs, but sadly for Sussex, they only had two wickets in hand. That soon became one wicket when top-scorer Hamilton-Brown advanced to drive Tredwell only to miss out and gift Jones a leg-side stumping.

Last man James Kirtley (0) then holed out to long-off when trying to slog against Azhar Mahmood and Sharks were all out for a miserable a 112.

Lowly Sussex, who were without England’s Luke Wright, also opted to rest the likes of Chris Adams, Robin Martin-Jenkins and Mushtaq Ahmed, yet they performed reasonably well with the ball through seamer Chris Liddle who helped restrict Kent to a scoring rate of only 8.1 an over.

Batting first after winning the toss, Spitfires lost Joe Denly, the second-highest scorer in the entire cup competition in 2008, for a second ball duck.

Cutting at a wide one from Smith, Denly picked out Carl Hopkinson at backward point.

Arafat was promoted to No3 and the move paid dividends with a stunning innings of 42 from 23 balls.

The Pakistan all-rounder took 22 off Smith's last over. It went; 6,6,4,6 and sadly for Arafat, out.

In trying to clear the ropes for a fourth time Arafat picked out Goodwin at deep mid-wicket to end a stand worth 67 in seven overs with Rob Key.

Having conceded 13 in his first three overs, Smith finished with considerably worse figures of 2-35.

Key took up the big-hitting role to crack a six off Yardy’s left-arm spin, but Yardy had his revenge by having Key caught at deep mid-wicket for a steady 38 from 36 balls.

Leg-spinner Will Beer then removed Darren Stevens, for 22 from 20 balls, to a good low catch at cover by Hopkinson and at 113-4 the Kent innings was in danger of running out of steam.

But Azhar Mahmood steadied the ship and although Matt Walker looked hopelessly out of sorts, the pair still added 34 before Walker went for 12. Having just hit Liddle for six onto our press box roof, the left-hander aimed to work to leg only to go leg before to a near yorker.

Martin van Jaarsveld, demoted to bat at No8, at least did his bit to give the strike to big-hitter Mahmood before holing out to deep mid-wicket off Liddle's final over of the innings.

Rather than rotate the strike to Azhar, who faced only one ball in the last over, new man James Tredwell swished hard to be caught behind off his second ball and then Geraint Jones lost his off stump to a Liddle yorker.

Last man Joseph scored a single from the final delivery leaving Azhar unbeaten on 34 from 21 balls having hit two fours and a brace of sixes.

Liddle finished with 4-28 and Kent were left to wonder whether they had scored nearly enough.

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