One last Twenty20 hurrah for 2012

Surrey's final Twenty20 group game takes place at Hove tomorrow with only pride at stake, Surrey are out and Sussex have already secured first place in the group. It will be the toughest of challenges against a table-topping side with quality throughout the order.

Chris Adams has made one change to the squad from yesterday, the 13 men and possible squad is as follows:

Steven Davies
Kevin Pietersen
Jason Roy
Gary Wilson
Zafar Ansari
Rory Burns
Matthew Spriegel
Gareth Batty
Murali Kartik
Chris Tremlett
Dirk Nannes

Bench: Chris Jordan, Zander de Bruyn

The man rested is Stuart Meaker, despite having bowled fewer than 11 overs in the last 20 days. Adams is looking to the Championship match at Guildford which is not far from a must-win game in the context of our season in the longer format, I suppose were Meaker to be injured in this final group game he would've looked foolish. Chris Jordan replaces him and given that there is nothing riding on the game I'd be tempted to throw him in, but I think Adams will go with the seam bowling pair from last night; Nannes and Tremlett.

I can only hope that Rory Burns is given another run out in place of de Bruyn. I really have nothing against Zander but he hasn't been at his best of late and Burns should be able to test himself against a top class Twenty20 side. Davies, Pietersen and especially Roy will be looking to continue their good work from yesterday when we finally managed to put together a strong top order batting performance.

Sussex are the standout side in this year's Twenty20. Nash, Prior and Wright is an absurdly strong top three in domestic limited overs cricket. Both Wright and Prior have strike rates north of 150, in Prior's case north of 200 - no batsman with over 100 runs in the whole competition is anywhere close to that. Their bowling is relentless too, Chris Liddle looks quicker than last year and his left arm bowling is tough to get away, Beer, Yardy and Rippon are handy spinners in Twenty20 cricket.

The all round improvement last night was plain for all to see. Save for a couple of overs here and there in the field we were excellent. A couple of times players have stressed that they do not want to look to the emotional events of the last few weeks as an excuse, which is an excellent attitude but its impossible to think it won't have been playing on their minds constantly. But the team looked brighter and more energetic last night, so Sussex will not have it easy tomorrow in spite of our position in the table. If we can keep Prior and Wright quiet, and our top three continue their resurgence, we should give them a good run for their money.