Inspired by some magnificent bowling by their spinners, the Brown Caps bounced back from their disappointing defeat at Chelmsford, crushing the Sussex Sharks by 100 runs to claim top spot in the T20 South Group.

The undeniable fact that ‘spin is king’ in Twenty20 cricket was confirmed under the Hove floodlights as brilliant bowling by Chris Schofield and Nayan Doshi enabled Surrey to move back to the top of the T20 South conference with a massive 100-run victory over Sussex.

When Schofield joined Doshi in the attack to bowl the ninth over of the hosts’ innings, the score was 43 for three, with Matt Nicholson and Neil Saker having already removed the dangerous Luke Wright and Murray Goodwin in addition to putting Sussex behind the clock in their pursuit of 169 to win. At this stage the Brown Caps were merely marginal favourites to win the match, yet, incredibly, within six overs the game was over as a contest, as seven Sharks’ wickets tumbled for just 19 runs.

Schofield started the amazing collapse by bowling Chris Adams with his second delivery, then claimed the scalps of Carl Hopkinson and Andrew Hodd in his second over after Doshi had deceived Rana Naved (25) in the flight to have him stumped by Batty in the intervening over. Things went from bad to worse for the home side as Robin Martin-Jenkins became Schofield’s fourth victim in the thirteenth over, holing out to extra cover with the score on 59, before Doshi had Ollie Rayner caught at deep midwicket five deliveries later.

Chris Nash was then run out next ball, beaten by a direct-hit throw from Nicholson at mid-off, as Sussex lurched to the brink of defeat at 62 for nine. The final wicket proved a little more difficult to pick up as Mushtaq Ahmed and James Kirtley attempted to scrape together a few runs in the knowledge that net run rate could ultimately prove decisive in the South group, but when Nicholson eventually had Kirtley caught behind to complete a stunning Surrey victory it was the spinners who deservedly took all the plaudits.

Schofield, unsurprisingly named man of the match, claimed four for 12 from his four overs - having taken four for 32 in the Friends Provident Trophy match on this ground in May - while Doshi returned two for 12.

Earlier in the evening, Surrey, with a re-jigged batting order forced on them by the absence of Azhar Mahmood, had registered 168 for six from their twenty overs. It was very much a team effort from the Brown Caps, with the top five in the order all scoring between 18 and 41 at better than a run a ball, while Nicholson provided a late burst of acceleration with a knock of 16 from just eight balls. Although much of the Surrey batting was, as ever, entertaining to watch, the capacity crowd’s attention was frequently drawn to the set of floodlights closest to the pavilion as the lights went out and smoke began to billow from the top of the pylon. Fears that there could be safety issues, and concerns that the loss of one of the eight sets of lights could present the batsmen with problems later in the game, fortunately proved unfounded. Coping with Schofield and Doshi was a different matter.

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