By Anna Thompson BBC Sport at Lord's

The C&G Trophy final is cricket's equivalent of football's FA Cup - the showpiece event in the domestic calendar.

We never stopped believing Sussex captain Chris Adams

This year it had the added ingredient of being a tasty starter to what should be a mouth-watering climax to the County Championship with the top two teams - Lancashire and Sussex - going head-to-head.

It was a shame therefore that the match warranted hardly any attention in the national media in the run-up to Saturday's game at Lord's.

The world of cricket has been completely overshadowed by the ball-tampering/Darrell Hair affair in the final Test between England and Pakistan, now known as Ovalgate.

But games are still being played and on this showing the C&G Trophy final certainly deserved proper attention.

Before the match, the bookmakers were finding it hard to differentiate between the Lightning and the Sharks - and they were right, because although Sussex ran out 15-run winners in the end, it was an extremely close and thrilling match.

The cricketing public is now used to high-scoring games in which teams have to swing the bat for maximum entertainment, thanks largely to the arrival of Twenty20 four years ago.

You can still have exciting matches, however, when bowlers are on top.

Lancashire believed they were in the box seat after dismissing Sussex for 172.

Dominic Cork ran out of partners for Lancashire

But former England seam bowler James Kirtley, who has had to remodel his action after being reported, came to the party in a big way.

He steamed in, bowled straight and ended up with the man of the match award for his 5-27 off 8.2 overs.

Sussex skipper Chris Adams was rightly proud of his men for battling away for their first C&G Trophy title for 20 years.

"We have a great team spirit and the main ingredient was belief. We never stopped believing," he said.

For a side with a proud record of winning one-day finals, Lancashire have now fallen into the habit of coming up short on the big occasion.

In the 1990s they won six one-day trophies, but since then they have lost six semi-finals and also slipped up in the final of last summer's Twenty20 Cup against Somerset.

"The pressure got to us a little bit but I wouldn't say we choked. We lost wickets at bad times and couldn't build partnerships," their skipper, Mark Chilton, admitted.

Sussex's spirit of togetherness proved decisive

Now attention turns to the Championship with both teams on 189 points and with three matches to play.

Lancashire are looking for their first title since 1934 - they shared it in 1950 - while Sussex are gunning for glory for the second time in four years.

Chilton is adamant Lancashire will turn defeat at Lord's to their advantage.

"We are bitterly disappointed to have lost the C&G Trophy final because we should have won.

"To get to where we are has taken a lot of hard work. We don't want that hard work to be for nothing at the end of the season."

The C&G Trophy final went right down to the wire - and there's a good bet on the Championship doing the same.

It was more like a boxing match than a cricket final with each side raining down potentially knockout blows.

Unlike the other slugfest which has been going on in international cricket, this was a genuine contest with a positive outcome.