Stand-in captain James Kirtley today praised Sussex's young guns after they took a giant step towards qualifying for the knockout stages of the Benson and Hedges Cup.

The county recorded their second successive win in the south qualifying group yesterday when they defeated Kent by five wickets with ten balls to spare at Hastings.

Gold award winner Mark Robinson took 4-29 as Kent were restricted to 174 and important contributions from Bas Zuiderent (42), Richard Montgomerie (37), Will House (35) and Umer Rashid, who was unbeaten on 21, guided their side to victory.

A second successive win means the county will definitely qualify for the last eight if they beat Hampshire, who have no chance of going through, at West End today (10.45am), probably as group winners.

Even if they lose, Sussex will qualify if Middlesex fail to beat Essex at Chelmsford or Surrey slip up against Kent at Canterbury. And they also have the insurance of knowing that the two best third-placed teams in the three groups will also make the cut.

Kirtley, who was leading the county for only the second time, said: "The win over Middlesex on Friday gave us something to build on and I think in both games we have proved we don't rely on our big performers.

"We're playing well as a team. We can't rely on big guns like Chris Adams or Tony Cottey at the moment because they aren't there. We have bowled better, but we felt anything under 200 was gettable and I thought the middle order showed a lot of maturity in the way they approached their task.

"We have got another big game today but there is not quite as much pressure on us to win. Hopefully we will relax a little bit more."

Sussex are likely to name an unchanged side for the third successive game today, although Cottey is fit again after recovering from tennis elbow.