Yorkshire believe they are well placed to overcome Sussex in Saturday’s Friends Life t20 Finals Day at Cardiff – despite their 40-over defeat to the same opponents at Headingley yesterday.

Reduced to 28 overs per side, the White Rose county failed to defend a revised target of 207 in a last-ball thriller, in which fast bowler Amjad Khan scored 15 of 16 runs needed off the last over.

It was a defeat that ended Yorkshire’s hopes of Clydesdale Bank 40 qualification with two group matches still to play. In effect, Wednesday’s floodlit clash with Kent at Canterbury is a dead fixture. Or is it?

First-team coach Jason Gillespie said: “It was obviously disappointing to lose such a close game. I thought our effort was up there but at important times we didn’t quite get our skills right. I think that cost us.

“We’ve given Sussex a lot to think about. We had them shell-shocked with the bat and I’m really confident for when we next meet them that we can take them on.

“Posting 200-8 was a good total and we were happy with the way we batted. I thought our batting was excellent with good, positive intent.

“Our focus must now turn to Kent and we’ve got a couple of guys like Ryan Sidebottom, who we rested against Sussex, that we’ll be bringing back in. I’d like to give him a run-out ahead of Saturday.

“Playing white-ball cricket this week helps us. We obviously wanted to beat Sussex to keep our hopes alive in 40-over cricket, so it’s disappointing to lose. But it’s an added bonus that we’ve got the Kent game to look forward to.

“We’ll have pretty much the same squad for Kent and Finals Day. We’re going to take those guys to Kent and then on to Finals Day, when we’ll also welcome back David Miller. He won’t be available to us at Kent.”

Miller, on duty with South Africa A in Ireland, will link up with Yorkshire on Friday, while Jonny Bairstow and Tim Bresnan are expected to be released from England’s one-day squad on Friday night to face Sussex.

Yorkshire lost their opening CB40 match to Kent at Headingley in May. Kent can still qualify for the semi-finals.