Sussex lift Emirates trophy

The Sussex Sharks claimed the Emirates airline Twenty20 trophy with a 57-run victory over Lancashire Lightning at 7he Sevens ground on Friday evening. Lancashire were set a target of 163 to prevail after the Sharks had reached 162-6 from their 20-over allocation, with Luke Wells (45, including four fours and two sixes) and Andy Hodd (42, including two fours and one six) leading the way with the bat.An unbeaten, lower-order knock from captain Michael Yardy (21no, including two fours and one six) also propelled Sussex innings late on after Ben Brown (16), Chris Nash (13), Matt Machan (2) and opening batsman Joe Gatting (0) failed to fire out in the middle. Lancashire’s Oliver Newby returned economical figures with the ball of 3-26 and he was well backed up by Kyle Hogg (1-30), Gary Keedy (1-21) and Tom Smith (1-28). It appeared at the midway stage as if Sussex had batted Lancashire, who had played an extra match to reach this final, out of contention by setting up such a challenging run chase for their presumably tiring opponents. So it proved too, with Lancashire only able to muster 105ao in reply as Karl Brown’s 39 (including three fours and three sixes) proved the sole individual score of any significance. Jordan Clark (18) and Newby (11) were the two other Lancashire Lightning batsmen to reach double figures, whereas both Andrea Agathangelou (0) and Gareth Cross (0) fell for dire ducks. Sussex Sharks’ Will Beer did the majority of the damage with the ball, claiming a four-four (4-26), with Yardy (2-20) and Naved Arif (2-12) taking two scalps apiece. “It’s nice to win because winning is a habit and we’re looking to take that form back home,” said skipper Yardy of the 2010 and 2011 finalists in this competition. “It’s difficult for them to come and play three games back to back. That asks a lot of a team, but it’s not for us to worry about that. “Their circumstances were not great for them, but – for us – some young players really stood up and showed improvement and hopefully they’ll take that into the county season back at Hove.” Sussex had won through to this all-English showdown with a 27-run triumph over Durham — the eventual Plate champions — in the semi-finals, whereas Lancashire’s passage was somewhat less straightforward. They accounted for Fly Emirates XI by eight wickets in the morning’s qualifying quarter-final, before edging out Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) by four wickets at the last-four phase. Sussex then now join Fly Emirates XI (2010) and fellow English county Nottinghamshire (2011) as winners of this tournament in its fledgling, three-year history.