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Holloway applies a deft touch

Somerset (195-5) bt Sussex (192-8) by 5 wkts

On A slow pitch prepared to suit the Sussex attack's hitherto chilling ability to stifle all comers with medium pace and spin, Somerset's victory with 23 balls to spare saw home tactics badly backfire.

A game between the only two counties unbeaten in one-day cricket became a matter not of outscoring opponents but of out-suffocating them. That a tricky 193-run target proved so comfortable reflected the magnificent form of Cornish left-hander Piran Holloway, man of the match and a limited-overs revelation this summer with 595 runs at 85 an innings.

Though he required lives on 15, off the excellent Mark Robinson, and 57, nobody was likely to prosper without fortune and earlier Sussex's Raj Rao (67) was missed on 33 while Jamie Carpenter (55) should have been comfortably run out for 39.

Holloway, arriving in the reply's fourth over when Jamie Cox was wonderfully caught by his diving Tasmanian team-mate, Michael Di Venuto, at short extra cover, showed a deft rather than brutal approach and was all the more damaging for that.

But the game had arguably been settled in the first 15 minutes. Steffan Jones's first 11 new-ball deliveries found Di Venuto caught behind driving ambitiously and Chris Adams advancing down the pitch to be bowled. A product, like Holloway, of Loughborough University, Jones was not given his full quota of overs yet returned four for 25, his best this year.

With their key batsmen gone, Sussex reached only 79 for three after 31 overs, Tony Cottey being yorked on the way. The momentum then came, too late, from Rao and Carpenter. Intelligent, well-paced support batting for Holloway countered the Sussex squeeze and Somerset barely stuttered on their way home.