England captain Nasser Hussain added to Yorkshire's woes with a scorching century at Chelmsford yesterday which sent them tumbling out of the Benson and Hedges Cup.

Hussain's unbeaten 136 was his highest score in one-day cricket for Essex and it guided them into the semi-finals as they cantered to their 238 target with seven wickets in hand and a full five overs to spare.

Yorkshire's bowlers never looked like making a contest of it and Hussain treated his England colleague Matthew Hoggard with contempt, smashing him for 14 in his final over and taking nine fours off him in all.

Gold award winner Hussain, who opened the Essex innings, made his runs off 144 balls and thrashed 18 fours and a six without ever giving a chance.

This was another horror show by Yorkshire who are a pale shadow of the side which lifted the Championship title last season.

Hoggard was hammered for 65 runs in his ten overs and England all-rounder Craig White fared little better in going for 51 from his full quota.

Hussain began by playing orthodox attacking shots but as the game wore on he added brute force to his batting and he and Irani kept the scoreboard racing with a succession of blistering drives.

Put in to bat, the only time Yorkshire looked like worrying their opponents was when Chris Silverwood cut loose after being sent in as a pinch-hitter upon the fall of Craig White's wicket in the second over. After taking his time to warm up, Silverwood launched himself into consecutive straight sixes off Irani, the first of them soaring over the Press Box and landing a couple of feet short of the river.

Then he continued his assault by blasting four boundaries in an over from Ashley Cowan, three of them coming off successive balls, and two more boundaries against Jon Dakin rushed him to his 50 off only 36 deliveries with six fours and two sixes.

But after adding another boundary, Silverwood tried to hit his 42nd ball out of the ground and was yorked by Dakin who went on to dismiss Anthony McGrath and Gary Fellows in one over to finish with Essex's best figures of three for 47.

Michael Vaughan chipped in with a handsome 32 before being caught behind cutting at former Yorkshire all-rounder Paul Grayson.

And with the middle order having collapsed, Darren Lehmann was forced to go more steadily than he would have liked.

The beleaguered Yorkshire captain put on 75 for the seventh wicket with Richard Blakey and it was in trying to step up the pace in the 48th over that the Australian holed out to a brilliant diving catch by Andy Clarke for 59.

It was a mystery why Yorkshire chose to play Andy Gray instead of England off spinner Richard Dawson.