Seifert century not enough to prevent defeat at Hampshire

A scintillating century from overseas signing Tim Seifert wasn’t enough to prevent Sussex from falling to defeat at Hampshire.

Young seamer Henry Crocombe was outstanding with the ball, taking three wickets for 31 runs as Hampshire set the Sharks a target of 200 runs in the opening innings.

Crocombe bowled brilliantly, taking the crucial wicket of Vince to help to slow the Hampshire run-rate down. Wickets from Steve Finn, Archie Lenham and Obed McCoy helped to restrict the hosts to 199, meaning Sussex would need to score at 10 an over to complete the chase.

Wicket-keeper batsman Seifert followed up his debut knock of 35 last night against Middlesex with an exceptional century from just 55 balls, including 9 fours and 5 maximums.

Seifert had great support from Delray Rawlins who made 32 from 21, but an opening partnership from Hampshire’s James Vince and Ben McDermott of 124 gave the home side the perfect platform to win the game.

Seifert and Rawlins put on a fifth wicket stand of 69 to give the Sharks a chance as the overs whittled away, but Rawlins was run out by the tightest of margins, possibly millimetres away from making it home just before the umpires took the players off for rain.

That came at the end of the 17th over, and with Sussex on 139-5 they still needed 61 runs from the final 18 balls.

The rain subsided and the players returned for the final three overs, and although Seifert brought up his century with 2 big sixes in the final over, the total proved too much in the end and Hampshire eventually picked up their first win of the T20 Blast campaign.

Reaction from centurion Tim Seifert

“I never thought the century was in play. When we came out after the rain it was kind of like ‘see what happens’. We were always behind the eight ball, but you never know what’ll happen if you take it deep.

“You’d rather win but for the confidence it is good. Whenever we wanted to start putting the pressure back on them we kept losing wickets. It was hard to get away and we never managed to build any partnerships.

“They batted really well. They got off to a flier and a few wickets got us back in the game. We pride ourselves on taking wickets but we probably gave them a little too many runs at the backend.

“There is no panic at all after that. We have been playing some good cricket but we have a few things to tidy up.”