Chris Adams today called for a Twenty20 Cup revamp to avoid the anomolies which he feels prevented Sussex from progressing to the knockout stages.
Somerset and Derbyshire completed the quarter-final line-up because they had the best record of the third-placed teams with four wins compared to Sussex's three.
But the Sharks had a bigger wins and smaller losses percentage than both their rivals as well as a better net run rate. Five of Sussex's games were rain-affected and three were washed out altogether.
Adams believes those three factors should be taken into consideration first when deciding who goes through along with the respective group winners and runners-up to the last eight.
And he would like to see the group stage expanded to ten matches so each county plays the other home and away rather than this season's format where Sussex only played Middlesex and Kent once.
He said: "It will sound like sour grapes but I don't think the tournament has been thought through properly.
"It's been a real hotch-potch and unfair on the spectators who have again turned out in big numbers to support Twenty20."
Adams also feels the rules regarding rain affected matches should be relaxed.
"On Monday 40 minutes after our game with Middlesex was abandoned we could easily have played a five-overs match under floodlights.
"It had stopped raining and the 5,000 people who turned up should have been given the entertainment they deserved. Irrespective of what the result might have been, I don't think it was fair.
"Yet the following night Essex played Surrey in far worse conditions in a five over slog when it was raining steadily and totally unfit for cricket."
Adams feels an acute sense of frustration because he knows Sussex have played pretty well in Twenty20 with the exception of their match at Chelmsford.
Group winners Surrey beat them off the last ball at Hove, when Sussex got the rough end of Duckworth-Lewis calculations, but the tables were turned at the Oval on Wednesday when the Sharks won by three wickets.
Rana Naved took his first two wickets for the county before winning the match with a six.
"Rana has really impressed me," admitted Adams. "Take nothing away from Johan van der Wath but he looks a proper bowler. He's a thinking bowler, a quality performer who does the basics well.
"And judging by the way he won the game and how he's looked in the nets I think he's a terrific striker with the bat as well. He talks like a proper batsman and if he bats at eight in the Championship he will get the opportunity to play long innings."
Luke Wright smashed 54 from 33 balls and then took 2-30 as Sussex strengthened their bid to reach the semi-finals of the 2nd XI Trophy with victory over MCC Young Cricketers.
Sussex squeezed home by only five runs under the Duckworth/Lewis method at Horsham to record their fifth win in six games.
They bowled out their opponents, who were chasing a rain-revised target of exactly 200 in 34 overs, for 195 with two balls remaining.
Wright hit seven fours and three sixes as Sussex, whose innings was twice interupted by rain, made 197-7 in 34 overs after being put in.
Richard Montgomerie's 44 came off 66 balls with four fours while Robin Martin-Jenkins and Sean Heather hit 31 not out and 33 respectively.
There were four run outs in a frantic finish to the Young Cricketers' innings and they fell just short despite a brave 45 from Irishman Kevin O'Brien who came in with his side 108-6.
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