Sussex are right back in the Twenty20 hunt after withstanding rain, a Hampshire storm and the threat of lightning striking twice.

Persistent rain looked like wiping out last night's contest at Hove altogether at one stage.

Instead, we got another dramatic evening as Sussex shaded an eventful 12-overs-per-side contest on the back of Matt Prior's 42, decent bowling and super ground fielding.

The lightning? That could have struck again when Hampshire, just like Surrey 48 hours earlier, gave themselves an outside chance in the last two overs.

They needed 23 off two and 18 off one but Luke Wright and James Kirtley, supported by great ground fielding, saw the Sharks through.

As for the storm coming in from the west? That was the Hampshire reaction to the bizarre dismissal of Craig McMillan after he had chopped a ball from Mushtaq Ahmed downwards and seen it rear up into Matt Prior's gloves.

Prior said the ball had come off the batsman's foot and his appeal was upheld by umpire Mike Harris at cover point.

Hampshire, though, were furious, saying the ball had struck the ground. Skipper Shaun Udal accused the veteran Harris of panicking under pressure and felt the incident turned the game.

Prior was just as convinced it had been ball to boot to glove.

As for Sussex skipper Chris Adams, he was just delighted to see his side get back in business.

He said: "It was another brilliant performance in all departments.

"We probably wanted another ten or 15 runs but I'm really chuffed."

He had every reason to be. At 7pm we were all resiged to the two teams taking a point apiece for an abandonment.

That would have reduced Sussex's chances of going through to almost nil.

Instead they are putting the heat on Hampshire, as they were right from the moment Prior and Ian Ward answer-ed the challenge set by the Hawks when they put them in to bat.

The openers put on 53 from the first half of their mini-innings, taking 13 off Udal's first over, before Ward slogged across the line to Sean Ervine and was bowled.

Murray Goodwin and Johan van der Wath followed in similar style in the next eight balls, for the addition of just four runs, leaving Prior to run the show.

His 42 came off 26 balls and included four fours before he was well held low down by Ervine running in from deep mid-wicket.

Mike Yardy, who suffered last-over torment with the ball two nights earlier, will have enjoyed hitting two fours in the final four balls this time.

Despite those late blows Adams still reckoned Sussex did not have enough runs.

Hampshire, needing 8.5 per over, were 29-0 off three and 36-1 off four, the wicket being the demise of talented young Mitchell Stokes as Luke Wright roared in down the slope.

Mushtaq, though, was the bowling star with a wicket in each of his three overs and it alwys looked like Hampshire had given themselves too much to do.

Kirtley, the more renowned Sussex death' bowler, saw it through, helped by great fielding from Yardy to run out Udal from long-off.

When Ervine's 36-ball innings ended off the last delivery of the game, the sun was really shining on the Sharks. Figuratively at least.