The biggest crowd at the County Ground for seven years went home dissapointed last night after Sussex suffered a Twenty20 humiliation against their old rivals.

About 7,000 fans shoehorned themselves into the old place to create a great atmosphere but the party soon fell flat as the Sharks were thrashed by 100 runs, the second time they have lost by that whopping margin to Surrey in the competition's five-year history.

On a slow pitch, Surrey's 168-6 was about par and to overhaul it Sussex needed at least one of their power hitters, batsmen who can take the aerial route to the boundary, to come off.

But between them, Luke Wright, Chris Adams and Rana Naved managed only 34 runs while Murray Goodwin, their other proven match-winner, made just eight.

Then the middle order could not escape the stranglehold imposed by Surrey's two spinners, Nayan Doshi and Chris Schofield.

The crowd may have come to pay homage to Mushtaq Ahmed, but he was outperformed by Surrey's leggie Schofield.

The former England man took 4-12 in his four overs and with Twenty20's leading wicket-taker Doshi offering no escape route at the other end, the Sussex innings turned into a depressing procession as seven wickets fell for 19 runs in 33 balls.

They just about managed to squeeze past the competition's lowest ever total of 67, which they themselves made against Hampshire in 2004, but that was scant consolation for the crowd, many of whom were heading towards the exit long before the end.

Last-wicket pair James Kirtley and Mushtaq Ahmed were forced to try and preserve their wickets in the last six overs to help avoid further damage to Sussex's run rate but, when Kirtley edged Matt Nicholson behind off the fifth ball of the 16th over, Sussex had been topped and tailed for a miserable 68.

With Kent surprisingly beating Essex at Chelmsford, the south group is wide open again with four teams chasing two places, possibly three if the third-placed side finishes with a better record than counties in the other two sections.

Two of Sussex's three remaining fixtures are at Hove, although on the evidence of last night that does not appear to be much of an advantage. But they do need to beat Essex on Tuesday night.

First to go was Luke Wright. After scoring 103 and 49 not out earlier this week he managed just a single before nicking his fourth ball to the keeper.

Rana Naved was promoted to No. 3 and he hit two of the three boundaries in the innings as well as the only six, a huge straight blow off Jade Dernbach. But by the time he became Doshi's first victim in the tenth over, Sussex had lost their big two with Goodwin top-edging a pull and Schofield sneaking one under Adams' bat.

After that it became little more than a procession. Jonathan Batty pulled off his second smart stumping to remove Carl Hopkinson, Andrew Hodd drove to extra cover and Robin Martin-Jenkins fell in similar fashion to give Schofield, a player Sussex had on trial a couple of years ago, his fourth wicket.

Doshi was not going to miss out. Ollie Rayner hoisted him straight to the fielder on the deep mid-wicket boundary and when Chris Nash was run out off the next ball Sussex were 62-9 and embarassingly there were still six overs left.

Perhaps they had an inkling of what was to come when Surrey's strokeplayers struggled to score at much more than a run a ball after Mark Butcher had won the toss.

The Sharks managed to take wickets at crucial times with James Benning (41), Mark Ramprakash (28) and Butcher (25) all prevented from doing too much damage.

There were two each for James Kirtley and Robin Martin-Jenkins, although both proved expensive, while Ramprakash spoiled Mushtaq's exemplary figures when he hoisted the penultimate ball of his spell over the sight-screen for six.

Sussex's fielding was pretty good, the highlight Rayner's direct hit from mid on to run out Stewart Walters.

With smoke billowing out of a floodlight pylon in the north-west corner for much of the Surrey innings because of an electrical fault it was not a great showcase Sussex cricket.

Neither were the long queues at the beer outlets although when Sussex wickets were falling like nine-pins a stiff drink probably seemed much the best option.

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