Yasir Arafat crowned a highly impressive Sussex performance by becoming their third bowler to take a hat-trick in the one-day league yesterday.

The 28-year-old Pakistan paceman polished off Gloucestershire’s innings in the last over when he had Steve Adshead caught at mid-wicket before yorking Ian Saxelby and Steve Kirby.

A target of 190 was never going to trouble the Sharks on a flat Horsham pitch with a fast outfield, especially once Luke Wright got his eye in.

The England all-rounder smashed an unbeaten 95 off just 62 balls with 78 of his runs coming in boundaries as he added an unbroken 136 in 19 overs with Ed Joyce, whose unbeaten 66 was the perfect foil for Wright.

Sussex had completed their third successive Pro40 win after just 26.1 overs to go back above Durham at the top of the first division. On this evidence it will take a special performance or two to prevent them from holding onto their 40 overs title.

Coach Mark Robinson said: “I am very proud of the players. We have had a tough two weeks but I felt we drew a line on Saturday when we drew the Championship game.

“The challenge was to bring the same energy and commitment we have shown in our other one-day cricket and that’s what we did. It was a perfect performance.”

Tony Buss, whose brother Mike was here yesterday for an old players reunion, performed the hat-trick against Worcestershire at Hastings in 1974 followed by Chris Adams at Hove 11 years ago against Middlesex.

The first one-day hat-trick of his career was a fantastic personal moment for Arafat, back in the side after missing last week’s Championship game because of a sore index finger, but James Kirtley was arguably Sussex’s best bowler.

He destroyed Gloucestershire’s top order with 3-18 in six impressive overs with the new ball as the Sussex attack imposed a stranglehold that they never relinquished by holding their lengths.

Will Porterfield was deceived by a slower ball in his second over and Alex Gidman, who scored a hundred in last month’s Friends Provident semi-final fell in his third, caught behind poking outside off stump.

When Kirtley took a tumbling return catch to end Kadeer Ali’s stodgy innings (five runs off 27 balls) the Gladiators were 35-3. It could have been worse with Kadeer badly missed at slip by Joyce off Arafat when he had not scored – just about the only blemish in Sussex’s performance.

There was a middle order recovery led by two Kiwis with Hamish Marshall making 50 off 56 balls and James Franklin a more skittish 36 but when Marshall was smartly taken low down by Andrew Hodd in the 33rd over Gloucestershire lost their last five wickets for 48.

Sussex made an impressive start to their run chase and by the time Hamilton-Brown was stumped coming down the pitch to off-spinner Richard Dawson’s first ball they had 56 on the board in the seventh over.

But that was just the prelude to a brilliant display of ball-striking by Wright who clearly decided early that he did not fancy running too much. He hit 18 fours and six over long on while Joyce contributed nine boundaries as Gloucestershire’s weary-looking attack were hammered to all parts.

A crowd of 3,700 lapped it up and if Sussex can reproduce this type of performance at Edgbaston on Saturday they will be hard to beat on Twenty20 finals day.