It was so warm at Hove last night that the floodlights failed when the generator overheated and Duckworth-Lewis calculations were used on the hottest day of the year.

The delay during Sussex's innings lasted only 15 minutes but it would not have been a surprise if the embarrassed home side had stayed in their dressing room and turned the lights off.

For while the temperature soared off the pitch, the county's performance on it was distinctly lukewarm. In fact, in a season of huge disappointment for the county in limited overs cricket, this was about as bad as it has been.

Chasing second-placed Hampshire's 250-6, the game was as good as lost before the stoppage with Sussex 29-4 after the second division's leading wicket-taker Dimitri Mascerenhas wrecked their top order with three wickets in successive overs.

Some lower order resistance kept the margin of defeat down to 62 runs but there were 5.5 overs unused when Sussex were dismissed for 181.

In the absence of the injured Chris Adams, Murray Goodwin was Sussex's main batting hope after scoring three hundreds in his previous four National League games. But he was dropped at the wicket off Sri Lankan Chaminda Vaas in the first over and taken at slip in the fourth driving loosely.

Tony Cottey perished in the same way in Mascerenhas' next over while Richard Montgomerie, opening the innings for the first time since the end of May, spooned the ball straight to cover.

When Vaas had Robin Martin-Jenkins caught behind in the ninth over Sussex were 19-4 and in a heap.

Things got no better when power was restored and the calculations left Sussex chasing a highly improbable 244 off 41 overs. Carl Hopkinson became Mascernhas' fourth victim when he top-edged a pull to fine leg and all that was left for the remaining batsmen was to try to restore a modicum of pride and keep a 3,000 entertained at least until it got properly dark.

Matt Prior and Michael Yardy effected a recovery of sorts by adding 28 in five overs before Prior mis-timed a drive at Alan Mullally and was caught at mid off, but the only resistance of note was provided by Yardy and Mark Davis.

In contrast to earlier events, neither batsman looked remotely troubled as they put on 64 for the sixth wicket in 12 overs. Davis hammered Shaun Udal for two sixes in his 36, the first an impressive straight hit onto the Gilligan Stand.

Yardy made a competition best before James Bruce removed both batsmen with successive deliveries in the 31st over with Yardy miscuing to extra cover and Davis yorked.

The crowd were entertained by cameos from Mushtaq Ahmed, James Kirtley and Billy Taylor at the end but there was no disguising the fact that Sussex had been outplayed.

The atmosphere all night had been subdued but that was not entirely due to the energy-sapping 90 degrees heat. Sussex could not be accused of going through the motions, but it was not hard to distinguish between the team trying to win the second division and one whose ambition in the remaining seven matches must be to finish out of the bottom four and avoid facing county opposition in the early rounds of next season's C&G Trophy.

On the evidence of the last two performances fulfilling even that modest ambition looks unlikely.

John Crawley won the toss for the ninth time this season in the competition. It was no surprise that he batted first or that a side who came into the match on the back of seven wins out of eight made the most of the same pitch which yielded more than 540 runs on Sunday when Scotland beat Sussex by six wickets.

Australian left-hander Simon Katich helped James Hamblin launch the innings in style. They put on 108 in 20 overs before Hamblin played across the line at Robin Martin-Jenkins after hitting seven boundaries in a 64 ball half-century.

Martin-Jenkins removed Derek Kenway later in the over for a second ball duck and Davis returned to the attack in the 25th over to remove the dangerous Katich who had faced 67 balls for his 57 before departing to a superb catch on the run at long off by Yardy.

Crawley and John Francis put on 76 in 15 overs for the fourth wicket before Francis chipped Kirtley's slower ball to mid-wicket.

Mascerhenhas crashed 20 off 11 balls while Crawley went to 55 off 66 balls, as Hawks hammered 49 off the last five overs.

Crawley hit five boundaries before Prior ran him out with a direct hit from backward point. It was comfortably the highlight of another below-average fielding display by Sussex. Come to think of it, it was the highlight of the whole evening.