Ravi Bopara hundred leaves Kent sweating on last-eight spot

A superb century from Ravi Bopara helped the Sussex Sharks beat the Kent Spitfires by 11 runs in a rain-affected Vitality Blast match at Canterbury on Friday night.

Bopara played a magnificent, almost chanceless, innings to record his highest-ever T20 score of 108 from 53 balls, with 18 fours and just one six, as Sussex posted a massive 228 for 7, Tom Clark getting their next-highest score with 47.

Kent were 31 for one in reply after 3.2 overs when heavy rain began to fall and they were set a revised target of 129 from 10 overs via the Duckworth-Lewis-Stern Method. Needing to hit out as soon as play resumed, they lost wickets too regularly to seriously threaten Sussex and finished on 117 for 4, although they remain in the top four.

There was another Friday night sell-out at the Spitfire Ground, but Kent's decision to bowl first soon backfired as they struggled to cope with damp and blustery conditions.

Jack Leaning bowled Harrison Ward for 5 with the fifth ball of the night and Oli Carter also went early, chipping Matt Quinn to Michael Hogan at mid-on for 3 but from 14 for 2 the Sharks launched a blistering counterattack. Bopara cover drove his first ball for four and took 14 from the over. Clark then took 18 from Leaning's next over and it was 73 for 2 by the end of the powerplay, by which time persistent drizzle was falling.

Clark looked in incendiary form, but when he tried to take a single off Joey Evison he was sent back by Bopara and run out by George Linde. Shadab Khan came in and hit Linde for successive sixes, but when he tried to repeat the feat he was caught by Jordan Cox on the boundary for 15.

Michael Burgess hit 21 from 14, but after switch-hitting Linde for six he was caught behind off the next ball.

Bopara responded by taking 19 from Grant Stewart's 15th over and he reached three figures with an elegant cover drive off Hogan for two in the 19th. Hogan had Fynn Hudson-Prentice lbw for 16 and Bopara finally went for 108, perhaps unluckily, when he hit a waist-high full toss from Quinn to Alex Blake.

Kent knew they'd have to eclipse their previous highest run chase of 207 to win a T20 match but just three came from the first over and Tawanda Muyeye then played on to Ari Karvelas and was bowled for 1.

Blake went in at No. 3 for his first appearance of the season and immediately went on the charge. He hit the first ball of Tymal Mills' fourth over for four and dumped the next into the Sainsbury's next to the ground for six, but at this point the umpires decided the rain had become too heavy and when they returned Kent needed 98 from 40 balls.

Daniel Bell-Drummond, having scored 480 runs across formats in the previous week, had to retire hurt on 7 and although Sam Billings was dropped by Clark off his first ball, before the over was out Blake holed out for a 12-ball 30.

Linde hit 12 from three before he was run out chasing a second but Billings and Cox just about kept Kent in it. The former was run out chasing a non-existent single and after Mills went for just six in the 19th, Kent needed 26 from Nathan McAndrew's final over. They could only manage 14 but results elsewhere mean they can still qualify if they win at Taunton on Sunday.