Mustafizur stars on county debut as Sussex prevail over Essex in NatWest T20 Blast

A dazzling bowing display from Mustafizur Rahman has helped Sussex Sharks take a 24-run win over Essex Eagles on his county debut in the NatWest T20 Blast.

The wily 20-year-old seamer grabbed four wickets giving away 23 runs from four overs at Chelmsford.

Asked to bat first, Sussex batsmen rallied to post an imposing 200-6 at the country ground.

After skipper Luke Wright (32 off 24 balls) and Philip Salt (33 off 19 balls) laid a strong platform up front, some late fireworks from allrounder Chris Jordan (21-ball 45) lifted Sussex to the total.

In reply, Essex managed 176-8 as Mustafizur made the difference with his bag of tricks to be adjudged the Man-of-the-Match.

He began to have a say with a fine catch that saw the back of Nick Browne (1) in the second over by Tymal Mills.

Like his time with the Sunrisers Hyderabad in the Indian Premier League, Mustafizur started off in the last over of the powerplay, by which time Essex were flying at 50 from 5 overs.

But Mustafizur kept things tight, giving away just four runs and the pressure soon led to the wicket of Tom Westley (23) in the next over.

Wright then opted to keep Mustafizur in reserves for the death overs.

After Dan Lawrence (36) was trapped lbw by Will Beer, Ravi Bopara (32) kept the chase going.

The match boiled down to Essex needing 68 off the last five overs with six wickets in hand. In came Mustafizur, who still had three overs to bowl.

He took out Bopara in the 16th over but only gave away two runs.

In his next over, Mustafizur went through the gates of James Foster (5) and Callum Taylor (0) as his figures stood 3-13 in 3 overs.

Mustafizur bagged his fourth in the last over when Ryan ten Doeschate (26) hit him straight to Mills.

Sussex have climbed to fourth in the points table with the win. They now have 12 points from as many matches.

Kent Spitfires, who are fifth, are level with them on points having played the same number of matches but are behind on net run rate.

Gloucestershire lead the table with 19 points from 13 matches while Glamorgan and Middlesex follow with 15 and 13 points, respectively, from 11 matches each.