Dimi Mascarenhas described Michael Carberry as “amazing” after the Hampshire opener fired an unbeaten 85 to confirm his side will win the FLt20 south group.

The Royals, defending champions of the T20 trophy, have been in scintillating form this season and have won the group and secured a home quarter-final with a game to spare.

Their demolition of Kent at Canterbury was resounding, and a bit of revenge for losing to the Spitfires in the reverse fixture at the Ageas Bowl, Hampshire’s only T20 defeat this season.

Carberry’s innings was the mainstay of Hampshire’s highest total in this year’s competition as they finished on 185-6 before restricting Kent to 123-9 to secure a massive 62 run victory.

The opener’s performance brought plenty of praise from his captain.

Mascarenhas said: “Every time he’s gone out to bat in white ball cricket he’s been unbelievable.

“It’s a credit to him. He works very hard on his game and is in the nets hitting balls for literally hours and hours so all credit has to go to him and he deserves all the success he’s getting.”

Inevitably Carberry’s form this season is leading to speculation over whether he could get an England one day spot and Mascarenhas reckoned: “With weight of runs you never know what can happen.

“As long as he keeps whacking them and scoring as many runs as he can you never know.”

The win was very one sided but there were no complaints from the Hampshire camp.

“It was a very good performance,” reflected the skipper.

“It’s the first time we’ve batted first in the group stages this year and we wanted to give ourselves a chance before we come to the finals to bat first and I think we did that exceptionally well.

“We are very lucky we have done well and so were already qualified so it was a chance to get out there and bat first and give the boys an opportunity before we get to the finals to give it a go and hopefully do alright.

“Carberry has been amazing this tournament and McKenzie the old timer is doing it again for us.

“They have got a hell of a lot of our runs so far this tournament.

“Hopefully that continues and we’d like a couple of the other boys to step up and we’ll be really tough to beat.”

Speaking of the advantage of a home quarter-final at the Ageas Bowl Mascarenhas added: “It is huge for us.

“We enjoy playing there, we know the conditions, the crowd are amazing when we play there and I think it is an advantage to us.

“In saying that we still have to go out there and play very well.

“Quarter-finals are massive games and only very good teams are going to get there and again we are going to have to put in a very good performance to get through to finals day.”