Kent's fourth win in seven days was never in doubt as soon as Martin van Jaarsveld, entering the fray at 45 for one, launched his first ball for six. The South African brought up his fifty in 51 balls and kept an even tempo on the way to his hundred, off 98 balls with eight fours and three sixes. With Joe Denly, he helped to add 174 for the second wicket.

Chris Adams, the Sussex captain, rang the changes but not only was he without Luke Wright, who was on Lions duty, and the mercurial spinner, Mushtaq Ahmed, whose absence is being keenly felt on the south coast, he knew his side were fifty runs short of a good score.

The Sussex innings had begun brightly with Mike Yardy and Chris Nash adding 34 in six overs but they scraped just ten more from the next nine overs as Kent's bowlers got a grip on the game. A frustrated Nash advanced to Yasir Arafat only to lose his off stump, Adams was pinned in front for 21 and James Tredwell accounted for Yardy, (who made 54), with a beautifully flighted off break, which caused the burly left-hander to overbalance out of his ground.

Sussex rallied through Rory Hamilton-Brown and Carl Hopkinson, but the latter got out just as a score in excess of 250 looked likely and the last ten overs realised 28 runs for the loss of six wickets.

Sussex
M H Yardy st Jones b Tredwell 54
C D Nash b Arafat 19
*C J Adams lbw b Cook 21
C D Hopkinson c Jones b Cook 48
R J Hamilton-Brown b Cook 35
A J Hodd run out 3
R S C Martin-Jenkins c Cook b Arafat 8
R G Aga lbw b Tredwell 4
T M J Smith run out 7
R J Kirtley not out 2
C D Collymore not out 1

Extras (lb 3, w 4, nb 4, p 5) 16
Total (9 wkts, 50 overs) 218

Fall of wickets: 1-39, 2-78, 3-118, 4-192, 5-196, 6-196, 7-201, 8-213, 9-216.

Bowling: Arafat 10-1-31-2; Azhar 10-1-35-0; Joseph 8-0-45-0; Cook 8-0-41-3; Stevens 6-0-25-0; Tredwell 8-0-33-2.

Kent
J L Denly not out 83
M J Walker c Hodd b Martin-Jenkins 22
*M van Jaarsveld not out 109

Extras (lb 1, w 4) 5
Total (1 wkt, 42.1 overs) 219

J M Kemp, D I Stevens, G O Jones, Azhar Mahmood, J C Tredwell, Yasir Arafat, R H Joseph and S J Cook did not bat.

Fall of wicket: 1-45.

Bowling: Aga 4-0-31-0; Collymore 7-0-36-0; Martin-Jenkins 7-0-38-1; Kirtley 5-0-15-0; Yardy 6-0-33-0; Smith 3-0-18-0; Hamilton-Brown 5.1-0-18-0; Nash 5-0-29-0.

Umpires: S A Garratt and M J Harris.