Majestic Michael Bevan put his old county to the sword to set up another impressive National League win for Sussex yesterday.

The Australian left-hander, who had made a Championship best 150 the previous day, raised his competition average to 105 with his fourth not out in eight innings.

His sparkling 89 coming in at No.4 underpinned a hefty Sussex total of 272-6 from 45 overs, their highest against the Tykes, and it predictably proved well beyond an understrength Yorkshire outfit.

There was never much chance of the Phoenix rising to meet the challenge of an asking rate of 6.7 an over and they were bowled out for 202, suffocated by a professional bowling and fielding display by Sussex.

In winning three of their last four games the county have gone from first division relegation candidates to potential top-three finishers. The only cloud on the horizon is that when they meet Lancashire Lightning under the Hove floodlights in their next game on August 7 Bevan will be 10,000 miles away preparing to play for his country.

He came in yesterday in ideal circumstances. Sussex already had 104 on the board from 21 overs and, although his first 50 was scored at a relatively subdued pace, he accelerated to such an extent that his last 39 came off just 20 balls, including 15 off the last over from Paul Hutchison.

He has now scored a remarkable 773 runs in one-day cricket this season with power to add.

Will House helped him add 59 in eight overs as Sussex plundered 85 from the last ten off an attack which badly missed the injured Chris Silverwood (ankle) and Gavin Hamilton (side) as well as England pair Darren Gough and Craig White.

Yorkshire's players had been forced to congregate in the car park of their hotel at 3.30am by a fire alarm and their mood can't have improved when Richard Montgomerie and Chris Adams launch the innings with a blaze of attacking shots.

Montgomerie hit seven meaty boundaries in his 44 before he chipped a catch to mid-wicket off Matthew Hoggard after the first- wicket pair had put on 78 off 14 overs.

Umer Rashid's promotion up the order partly paid off. He maintained the momentum with a quickfire 12 before falling to Ian Fisher's slow left-arm, but Yorkshire's suffering was only just beginning when Bevan strode to the wicket to join his captain.

Adams seemed intent on trying to bat through the innings. There was never any prospect of a repeat of the bombardment which brought him 163 at the same ground a year ago, but a straight six off James Middlebrook brought the 3,000-plus crowd to their feet and there were five boundaries in a 64-ball 50, his fourth in succession in the competition.

So it was something of a letdown when he came down the pitch on the drive only to lose his off stump to Ryan Sidebottom. But 288 runs in four innings has more than justified Adams's decision to promote himself to opener in the 45-over contests.

Sussex briefly lost momentum with his departure and Tony Cottey could only manage 11 before he got a thin top edge trying to cut Middlebrook.

Bevan had been dropped when he had made just three, the ball going through Anthony McGrath's grasp at long off when Middlebrook tossed one up.

That effort typified a ragged fielding display by the Tykes while Sussex feasted on some wayward bowling on a flat pitch where line and length were vital.

Sussex's attack displayed those virtues in abundance, none more so than another former Yorkshireman, Mark Robinson.

David Byas and Matthew Wood launched the visitors' reply promisingly with 49 in 11 overs with Robin Martin-Jenkins, clearly hampered by his nagging side injury, restricted to just four overs.

But Robinson trapped Wood in front with a straight one and, when McGrath fell in identical fashion in the next over to Billy Taylor, it sparked a gentle decline in Yorkshire's fortunes.

Robinson finished with 2-20 from his nine overs after Gary Fellows drove him on the up into the covers, but the treasured scalp of his former captain David Byas was claimed by James Kirtley who ran him out with a direct hit from mid on. House again demonstrated his all-round worth by claiming a wicket with the second ball of two different spells, trapping Richard Blakey leg before as he tried to run the ball down to third man and bowling Middlebrook with one which held its line.

Fisher was defeated by a delivery from Rashid which turned sharply, but Darren Lehmann and Sidebottom gave a sizeable Yorkshire contingent something to cheer in a robust eighth-wicket stand of 68 in nine overs.

Lehmann emulated the contribution of the man he replaced at Headingley before he was yorked by James Kirtley for 89, made off 90 balls with six fours, and Rashid rounded off an impressive Sussex performance by claiming two wickets off successive balls to secure victory by 70 runs.