Glamorgan cruised to victory over Sussex Sharks in the first match of the 2022 T20 Blast for both sides, writes Joe Grant.

A half-century from Sam Northeast and 41 from Marnus Labuschagne took the Welsh side to a routine win at Hove to get their first points of the campaign.

Northeast struck 63 and reached 3,000 career T20 runs on his T20 Blast debut for Glamorgan.

Despite Steven Finn picking up his first T20 Blast wicket for the Sharks in the second over, they were not able to contain Glamorgan during the powerplay, which allowed them to cruise to their target of 151 with seven balls and seven wickets to spare.

Rawlins managed to pick up the wicket of the dangerous Labuschagne caught in the deep in the 12th over but the damage was already done by the partnership of the Australian and Northeast.

Mohammad Rizwan’s brilliant half-century was in vain as the hosts fell to defeat.

The Pakistan international scored 81 runs off 60 balls, including six fours and three sixes to carry Sussex to a respectable score of 150 at the interval.

The T20 blast debutant received little support from his teammates, with Luke Wright and Harrison Ward the next highest scorers with both managing just 13 runs.

Michael Hogan was the pick of the bowlers for the visitors, taking four wickets for just 26 runs from his four overs, becoming the visitors second highest ever T20 wicket-taker.

Other than Rizwan’s classy performance, the Sharks never really got going with bat or ball.

SCORECARD

Ravi Bopara will have been disappointed with suffering a comprehensive defeat in his first match as captain since taking over from Luke Wright and will be looking to Sunday’s home game against Kent Spitfires to make amends.