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In it to win it

Image: Adams: Upbeat on <i>Cricket AM</i>

Sussex skipper Chris Adams told Cricket AM that his side aren't out of the Twenty20 running just yet.

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But we've got to improve, admits skipper

Sussex captain Chris Adams told Cricket AM that his side are still in with a shout of Twenty20 glory. The most successful county captain on the circuit - and the longest serving in Sussex's history - has seen his side slump to three consecutive defeats to Kent, Hampshire and Surrey but the still-smiling skipper insisted that his side are focused on turning the corner. "We want to win it," 'Grizzly' admitted. "We got to the finals stages last year and it was a fantastic event. We got beaten in a game we thought we should have won by the eventual winners, Kent. "We've certainly got a lot to do - I think 7 wins will win you the league and you can probably sneak through with 6, so we haven't given ourselves much margin for error. "We've got a difficult regional division - there are some very good teams. Surrey have had a bad start but are a quality team; Essex always have been very good at Twenty20; Middlesex have had a good start and Hampshire have proved that Shane Warne or no Shane Warne, they're a spicy act and they've played brilliantly. "But we've got to pull ourselves together, pull our socks up and start winning some cricket."

Revolution

The explosive batsman, whose 37-ball 57 was the mainstay of Sussex's 137 during their last-gasp opening defeat to Kent Spitfires, admitted that the prospects of a Twenty20 pot of gold have made this year's tournament more competitive. The winners, along with the losing finalists will join two domestic teams from Australia, India and in a Champions League- with the winners set to pocket a cool £2.5m. And the Twenty20 stakes were raised even further by Texan billionaire Sir Allen Stanford, who announced a £50m winner-takes-all annual series between England and his West Indies superstars in Antigua. "With everything that's going on in the world of Twenty20, every player knows that if you bang out a century, you can become big news overnight," Adams told Simon and Anita. "I think someone will have to win this money before it really sinks in - £2.5m can do a bit of damage, and I'm pretty sure that everyone playing in the ODI series will have one name at the back of their mind - Stanford. "He's revolutionising the sport."
X Factor
Adams might be still waiting for his first victory of the 2008 Twenty20 campaign but the man who led the club to its first Championship title in 2003, and then again in 2006, did reveal the method - and one of the key men - behind Sussex's County success. "We waited 165 years but there's no real secret to our success," he said. "I formed a terrific partnership with Peter Moores, who's now with England, in 1998 and we concentrated on signing players who had the best attitude towards the game and not necessarily the best ability. "We became a competitive side but we were missing the X Factor - someone who can turn the game on its head - and we found that in Mushtaq Ahmed. Up to the start of this season he'd taken 467 wickets in 5 seasons. "He's been a massive contributing factor to the success we've had. He's been brilliant on and off the field - a magnificent character and very funny."

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