Paul Farbrace was delighted to right one of the wrongs of Sussex’s outstanding Twenty20 campaign.

Now he hopes to see them do it again in the quarter-finals.

Sharks will host Lancashire in the last eight after reclaiming their long-held second place in the south group on a magical Friday night at Hove.

They blitzed lowly Middlesex by nine wickets, led by 96 not out from Dan Hughes.

At the same time, Somerset were going down in similarly emphatic fashion at Glamorgan.

Somerset had overhauled Sussex by beating them at Taunton on the previous evening.

But Sharks ended the 14-game campaign second only to Surrey, having won nine of their 14 games.

A crowd of approaching 5,000 lapped it up.

Head coach Farbrace has worked hard to help Sussex make the most their unique home ground’s quirks and contours.

He said: "It was an outstanding performance.

“My one disappointment in this campaign so far is that when we've had a full house at Hove we haven't played as well as we can so to do that tonight and get a home quarter-final was fantastic.

“Apart from one dropped catch I thought we were excellent, it was almost a perfect performance.

“After losing and playing so poorly at Taunton on Thursday, I was a bit worried that we'd taken our foot off the gas and settled just for qualifying for the quarter-finals.

“We've just told the players now that we're one of eight teams left who genuinely could win the competition.

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“We have played really good cricket and it would have been a bit of a waste to finish with three losses so I'm really pleased for the players and the performance they produced tonight which has given us the added bonus of a home quarter-final."

Hughes finished the group stages as top run scorer across all 18 counties with 560.

Skipper Tymal Mills was third top wicket-taker with 24.

Sussex will take on a Lancashire side who slipped out of the top two on the final night with defeat at home to Northants.

Only Warwickshire bettered Sharks’ nine wins across the two groups and, pleasingly, four of those successes came at the 1st Central County Ground.

Their latest such result was never really in much doubt against a poor Middlesex outfit.

The visitors’ 159-9 never looked like being enough and conditions were put into perspective by Sussex openers Harrison Ward and Australian left-hander Hughes, who put on 141 in 15.1 overs.

It was Sussex’s fourth highest stand for any wicket in T20.

Ward, who had been drafted into The Hundred for the first time with Oval Invincibles earlier in the day, celebrated by easing to his third half-century in this season’s competition.

Apart from a mix-up which nearly ended in Hughes being run out, the Sussex pair did much as they pleased until Ward was caught at deep mid-wicket for 56 (42 balls, five fours, one six).

Hughes faced just 54 balls, hitting 12 fours and three sixes – the third to win the game with 22 deliveries to spare as he equalled his T20 career-best with his fourth 50.

With five needed and Hughes facing on 90, one wondered whether he might look to go four, six and reach his own personal century.

But he was happy to finish it off with one blow.

While disappointed about his England mission, Sussex have been pleased to see a lot of Ollie Robinson in the Blast this year – and hope to field Jofra Archer, too, in the knockout stages.

Robinson led a disciplined bowling performance and was key in reducing Middlesex to 22-3 by the third over, picking up a wicket with the first ball of each of his first two overs.

The dangerous Leus du Plooy was superbly caught at short-cover by Hughes and Danny Lamb produced an even better effort to remove Max Holden, flinging himself to his left to hang on to a full-blooded slash at backward point.

Later in the same over Lamb put down a much more straightforward chance to reprieve Jack Davies on nought and had to go off with an injury to his right shoulder.

It left Sussex a bowler light but slow left-armer James Coles (2-28) and off-spinner Jack Carson (2-23) strangled Middlesex’s attempts to accelerate, although Davies celebrated his reprieve by making 52.

Davies hit four boundaries in an over off Scott Currie and also swiped three sixes but Carson got him in the 14th over courtesy of one of three catches on the mid-wicket boundary by Tom Clark.