Surrey show their power as Sussex’s fine Blast start is checked at Hove

With the ignominy of a 124-run defeat to the Brown Caps at Hove in June 2023 almost perished by a fantastic start to 2024, Sussex were dragged back to those haunting memories by a Surrey side still packed with quality on this occasion.

This was despite the absences of captain Chris Jordan, opener Will Jacks, all-rounder Sam Curran and seamer Reece Topley – all at the T20 World Cup with England – as Surrey’s dominance of English cricket was painfully reinforced in an eventual 80-run victory.

Sussex were far from half-baked after an unbelievable victory at Essex the previous evening, but their limitations were exposed as a more experienced Surrey side punished some tentative batting.

With the Sharks ultimately failing to get within 50 runs of Surrey’s target of 184-8, it was a bruising end to a sell-out night that started with such promise.

With Sussex winning the toss, bowling first looked the wise option on a pitch that was still recovering from an inhospitable spell of rain earlier in the day.

The first two overs of the powerplay backed up captain Tymal Mills’ call too, with Ollie Robinson opening up from the Sea End and drawing an outside edge from Dan Lawrence with just the third ball of the match, while Fynn Hudson-Prentice bowled tidily from the Cromwell Road End.

Surrey’s surprise package, Dom Sibley, found confidence with a couple of cheeky ramp shots however and helped settle Laurie Evans who came in at three.

The batsmen controlled the rest of the power play, with Hudson-Prentice suffering in a damaging fourth over costing 19 runs, and Nathan McAndrew also going for 19 in his first over to see Surrey reach 66-1 after six overs.

Spin came into the equation immediately after, and James Coles got Sussex back on top with an over costing just three runs and yielding the wicket of Sibley, who miscued way up into the early evening sky and found Robinson’s mitts at square leg.

The crucial intervention followed, with Mills introducing himself against former Sussex man Evans for an utterly mouth-watering match-up.

With 288 and 211 previous T20 appearances from Evans and Mills respectively, the two most experienced campaigners on the pitch were set for a huge battle – but Evans bailed out early.

The Surrey hitman thought he had bought himself some luck by connecting beautifully cleanly with a Mills half-tracker, but with a lick of pace taken off the delivery, the England paceman drew Evans into finding Coles on the deep square leg boundary.

Evans’ 42 from 24 balls had set a platform for Surrey, but on a pitch which looked to give equal chance to bowlers and batters, it was a blow for the visitors that he had not pushed on.

The Brown Caps’ captain Ollie Pope needed a score to settle his side, and something akin to his personal-best 99 not out against Sussex just eight days earlier would have been very welcome. Alas, that was not to be either.

Robinson strangled his England Test match teammate with a slower ball that the 26-year-old tried to scoop to the boundary but only found the gloves of John Simpson. With Robinson soon bowled out, though, the strength of Surrey’s batting card reared back at Sussex.

Hotly-tipped future England star Jamie Smith took the attack to Jack Carson with a belligerent over costing another 19 runs, forcing the Sussex spinner immediately out of the attack.

Again, though, the ever-changing nature of T20 cricket soon put an end to Smith’s machine-gun batting, as Danny Lamb played his role to perfection.

In a crucial 15th over, with the innings on a knife-edge at 141-4, Lamb took not one – but two – big wickets.

Smith bludgeoned the Lancastrian down to long-off fielder Hudson-Prentice to hole out for 45 off 22 balls, while in the final ball of the over, Rory Burns also fell, caught by Tom Alsop a few metres inside the leg-side boundary.

From there, the innings concluded with a story of Hudson-Prentice’s magnetic mitts.

With the final ball of the 18th over, the Haywards Heath-born all-rounder executed a wondrous juggling act to have the ever-dangerous Tom Curran out for 24, and Surrey reduced to 174-7.

The next over, Hudson-Prentice repeated the trick; stationed perfectly at long off to catch Sean Abbott for two.

And while Alsop dropped a chance from Jordan Clark in the final over of Surrey’s innings, it was otherwise a strong finish from Sussex, limiting the visitors to 184-8.

With Robinson (2-25), Mills (2-21), Lamb (3-36) and Coles (1-23 off three overs) all bowling brilliantly, there was plenty to hearten Sussex ahead of a big chase.

While confidence was surging after the fourth-highest successful chase in Sussex’s T20 history against Essex the previous night, the size of this task against English cricket’s strongest domestic force became immediately obvious.

The prospect of Australian left-arm rocketman Spencer Johnson was a concern all evening, and when he dismissed Harrison Ward and Coles in the first over to leave the score 1-2, he sent Hove into a stone-cold silence.

Daniel Hughes survived the initial onslaught and went on the counter-attack to pick up four serene boundaries, but it was another Australian –Abbott – who soon saw to him.

A feathered shot found Smith behind the stumps, and Sussex were in deep disarray at 24-3.

What had served Sussex’s batsmen well all tournament was limiting their movement at the crease wherever possible, but with late adjustments for all three dismissals, the hosts had blinked when asked to trust their approach.

The ball was not behaving unexpectedly, but with Sussex finishing the powerplay at 40-3, the scorecard suggested otherwise.

After a mini-recovery from Simpson and Alsop, both batsmen perished before the 10th over as Simpson miscued a slower Gus Atkinson delivery and Alsop failed to get enough on a rare spinning delivery from Lawrence.

At this point, the game was gone for Sussex, but they could still salvage a respectable result for their net run rate if they played sensibly.

The nature of Surrey’s run accumulation – almost exclusively through power-hitting – played on the hosts’ minds though, and Lamb and McAndrew were both out attempting huge heaving efforts.

Hudson-Prentice offered some brave retaliation including a humungous six that sailed way above the media centre and out of the ground, but even he fell on his sword, bowled by a deceptive Lawrence delivery on 23.

To their credit, Sussex’s tailenders Carson (24 off 20 balls) and Robinson (20 off 13) did their bit by getting bat over ball and finding the boundary with some regularity – if living charmed lives.

Eventually, both perished and Sussex were out for 130 after 18.1 overs; their lowest T20 total since posting just 103-9 from 20 overs against Middlesex in July 2021.

With the Sharks not returning to action until Thursday night’s visit of Kent to the 1st Central County Ground, it will give head coach Paul Farbrace and his team much to ponder.

Sussex, though, remain second in the South Group before Sunday’s matches, and with a total of eight points after six matches, are still well-set if they can refind form next week.