The Hampshire Hawks conceded more than 200 runs for only the second time in the history of the Twenty20 Cup in completing another poor campaign in the shortest form of the game against south-coast rivals Sussex tonight.

Sussex were one of the few counties with a worse Twenty20 record than the Hawks before this season, but they marched to the quarter-final stage for the first time with an emphatic, 73-run victory in front of a Hove crowd of more than 7,000.

Luke Wright was again the star for Sussex.

Having hit an unbeaten 49 from 29 balls in Sussex's nine-wicket win at the Rose Bowl last week, he hammered Hampshire's attack for six sixes in his 48-ball 98.

It helped the Sussex Sharks to 205-5, the home side's record total in the fifth season of the Twenty20 Cup.

Only once before have Hampshire taken a bigger battering in the competition - the Middlesex Crusaders made 210 at the Rose Bowl two years ago.

Wright is the leading run scorer in this season's Twenty20 Cup after blazing the Hawks all around Hove.

Another two runs would have seen him become only the third player - after Ian Harvey and Graeme Hick - to score two Twenty20 Cup hundreds in a season.

But the home support was content to see Wright blast the Hawks for six maximums, with Greg Lamb and David Griffiths twice hit over the rope.

Jimmy Adams' medium pace flew over the hands of Billy Taylor at wide long off, then Wright crashed Lamb's off spin through Chris Benham's hands at long on.

After reaching his fifty from just 27 balls, Wright continued to wreak havoc in showing the form that has seen him tipped as an outsider to make England's Twenty20 World Cup squad.

Lamb was hit for another monstrous maximum, this time over the marquees at long on, and Griffiths also came in for plenty of punishment.

Wright cut his former England U19 teammate's first two deliveries to the boundary and then pulled the fast bowler over mid-wicket, out of the ground and against a block of flats.

He lifted the away debutant for another six over long on before getting enough of a top edge on a square cut against James Bruce to send another six over the cover-point boundary.

When he eventually holed out in the 17th over, he was given a standing ovation and it was left to Carl Hopkinson's unbeaten 26 (17 balls) to steer Sussex to their highest-ever score in the competition.

Former Sussex bowler Billy Taylor (2-32) was the pick of the Hawks attack on his return to Hove but he had little competition.

The Hawks were made to pay for not bowling a full-enough length by the cleanest of hits from Sussex's top order.

Murray Goodwin (45 from 32 balls) contributed to a second-wicket stand of 107 in nine overs with Wright before handing a return catch to his Western Australia teammate Adam Voges.

Sean Ervine was unavailable as he suffered a foot injury in the abandoned match against Essex at Chelmsford on Thursday and is awaiting the results of a scan.

His replacement, Michael Brown, struck a 24-ball 35 that included the only six of the Hawks' reply, whipped just behind square against Robin Martin-Jenkins.

But he was brilliantly caught at long on by man-of-the-match Wright and the Hawks could only manage 132-8.

In his last appearance before returning to Perth on Sunday, Voges was trapped lbw for the fourth time in six Twenty20 innings for the Hawks - and for the third match in succession.

Brown and Benham were dismissed in successive balls by Mushtaq Ahmed (2-24), who strangled Hampshire's reply in tandem with Pakistani spin twin Saqlain Mushtaq (2-22), who took his first wickets for the county.

James Kirtley (4-22) was also on a hat-trick when left handers Jimmy Adams (12) and Michael Carberry (23 from 20 balls) holed out.

Sussex will play Yorkshire in the quarter finals on July 17/18.