One-Day Cup: Dane Vilas hits century as Lancashire beat Sussex in semi-final
- Published
Dane Vilas hit eight fours and six sixes in his innings of 121
Royal London One-Day Cup semi-final, 1st central County Ground, Hove |
Lancashire 319-8 (50 overs): Vilas 121; Hudson-Prentice 3-43 |
Sussex 254 (46.3 overs): Orr 71; Hurt 3-43 |
Lancashire won by 65 runs |
Lancashire recovered superbly with the bat to beat Sussex by 65 runs and set up a One-Day Cup final against Kent.
The visitors slumped to 67-5 at Hove before Dane Vilas' marvellous 121 and half-centuries from George Lavelle and Danny Lamb helped them post 319-8.
Sussex were well placed at 126-1, but when in-form opener Ali Orr was out for 71 they could not keep up with the run-rate and stumbled to 254 all out.
The final takes place at Trent Bridge on Saturday, 17 September.
Lancashire's chances of posting a competitive total looked remote when seamer Fynn Hudson-Prentice (3-43) removed George Balderson to leave them five-down in the 15th over.
Vilas and Lavelle began the recovery with a sixth-wicket stand of 132, and after Lavelle was run out by a direct hit for 50, Lamb continued to provide fine support.
South African Vilas went on to bring up an 89-ball century before falling to a good catch by Brad Currie to give Hudson-Prentice his third wicket and leave Lancashire 271-7.
Lamb made sure his side passed 300 with 57 off 48 balls before he was run out off the final delivery.
Sussex batter Orr, who had scored a record-breaking 206 earlier in the competition, got the chase off to a good start with fellow opener Tom Alsop (25) and Tom Haines (49).
Alsop and Orr were both bowled by Liam Hurt and Balderson dismissed Haines and Cheteshwar Pujara to leave Sussex 167-4 in the 32nd over.
With the required run-rate climbing batters fell cheaply as seamer Hurt finished with 3-43 and Will Williams, Lamb and Balderson all chipped in with two wickets each.
Sussex coach James Kirtley:
"It's disappointing, obviously. We got ourselves in a good position earlier, then Dane Vilas showed his real class and that was an outstanding one-day innings.
"When you get over 300 you can exert some pressure, but we didn't play as well as we have done in some of the games this season.
"It will be a hard defeat to accept over the next few days but it will harden them up for future semi-finals because there's a hell of a lot of talent in that dressing room."
Lancashire captain Dane Vilas:
"George [Lavelle] and I managed to take it deep and then Lamby came in and showed his class to give us a decent total.
"We weren't short of runs but we weren't over the moon either. We had to bowl well and we did.
"Sussex put up some big totals in recent games and we knew they were going to be tough, but all our bowlers and fielders were fantastic. It's always nice to get into another final."
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