Essex gained full revenge for the defeat suffered earlier in the competition by seeing off Kent by five wickets at Chelmsford to leave themselves poised for a place in the Twenty20 Cup quarter-finals.
Tight bowling backed up by superb work in the field saw the visitors bowled out for 157, a target they passed with eight deliveries remaining after a swashbuckling half-century from skipper Ronnie Irani.
After failing to score in his two previous Twenty20 outings, Irani returned to form in typical style as he dealt contemptuously with the Kent attack.
His 53 from 43 deliveries contained three huge sixes that left many in the capacity 6,000 crowd taking evasive action, and for good measure he also struck five fours before becoming an lbw victim of paceman Amjad Khan.
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