Yorkshire Phoenix have virtually had to come back from the dead in order to set themselves up for a fascinating Twenty20 Cup quarter-final appearance against Sussex Sharks in a televised floodlit encounter at Hove on Wednesday.

And if they win this game they will be through to the semi-finals and final at Edgbaston on August 4 for the first time since the competition began four years ago.

What odds, I wonder, would the bookmakers have offered against Yorkshire making the last eight following their four-run defeat at the hands of Nottinghamshire Outlaws at Trent Bridge?

At that stage, they had lost three of their first four matches and the only point they had mustered came from the rain-wrecked Roses fixture at Headingley Carnegie.

It appeared impossible for them to advance. They needed to win their last four matches and for other results to go their way.

The impossible' happened and when Lancashire Lightning's final match against Leicestershire Foxes was washed out it meant all Yorkshire were required to do was beat bottom club Derbyshire Phantoms.

They managed that after a scare or two, Darren Gough leading Yorkshire on an escape route which would have deeply impressed Houdini.

Although luck was very much on Yorkshire's side they still deserve every credit because of their never-say-die attitude both on and off the field.

Their path would have been well and truly blocked if the England and Wales Cricket Board had not brought in an emergency measure allowing home teams to claim in advance an extra half-hour in which to complete matches in view of the appalling weather.

Yorkshire chief executive Stewart Regan announced the offer would come into force in all three of their final home ties.

It meant Yorkshire were able to get in a nine-over game against Nottinghamshire Outlaws and a five-over bash with Durham Dynamos.

Yorkshire took full advantage and performed with an enthusiasm in their last four games which brought them a maximum eight points, plus the point they had already collected.

It will be an outstanding achievement if Yorkshire do overcome Sussex and they can take comfort from knowing that they finished the zonal stages of the competition much stronger.

They were a little slow in adopting the right tactics, a case in point being that they did not even play left-arm spinner David Wainwright in the first match, yet he went on to bother every side with accurate bowling to bag seven wickets.

Jacques Rudolph - not employed to bowl his leg-breaks until the fourth match when he weighed in with 3-20 against Nottinghamshire - was used regularly after that.

Although it is unfair to be too critical in view of the appalling weather conditions, Yorkshire's batting often crumbled under pressure in the longer matches, the result being that quite reasonable targets of 155 at Grace Road and 144 at Old Trafford were unobtainable.

Yet Gerard Brophy, Craig White, Anthony McGrath and Andrew Gale all pitched in with some fine innings and if they can all come good together at Hove then the result could be one in the eye for Sussex skipper Chris Adams, who would now be Yorkshire captain and director of cricket if he had not reneged on the posts a fortnight after accepting them last November.