It was the sixteenth final of the Gillette Cup, which had been the first domestic tournament to pit first-class cricket sides against each other in a knock-out competition.

Sussex had appeared in the Gillette Cup Final on five previous instances; they won the tournament in each of the first two years (1963 and 1964), and were runners-up in 1968, 1970 and 1973.

[4] Somerset entered the tournament in the first round, in which they beat Warwickshire by six wickets,[5] aided primarily by a score of 139 not out by Viv Richards, who was later named man of the match.

[7] Garner's bowling was once again miserly in the quarter-final against Kent; he conceded five runs in nine overs, though Colin Dredge was named as the man of the match for his four wickets, which helped Somerset to a five-wicket victory.

In their response, Staffordshire fell three runs short, finishing with 219 for 9; each of Imran Khan and Geoff Arnold collecting four wickets.

[16] The Sussex captain, Arnold Long, won the toss and chose to bowl first, hoping that morning dew might give his bowlers an advantage.

[17] That brought Richards to the crease, and Long immediately changed both of his bowlers, replacing the quick bowling of the openers with the slower deliveries of Giles Cheatle and John Spencer.

Cheatle dismissed Rose in his first over, caught down the leg side by the wicket-keeper, Long after scoring 44 runs.

[16] Cheatle and Spencer each bowled their entire allocation of 12 overs without a break, and were followed by the introduction of another slow bowler, John Barclay.

[18] Although Richards finished as the competition's leading run-scorer,[19] Woodcock said that he struggled to score fluently, particularly against the spin bowling of Barclay and Cheatle.

[15] In the Wisden Cricketers' Almanack's summary of the season, Jack Alridge praised Long's captaincy in the final, highlighting the use of slower bowling against Richards and Ian Botham as being particularly commendable.

[15] Sussex began their run-chase well; Barclay and Gehan Mendis scored 93 runs together, surviving a spell of attacking fast bowling from Garner and Dredge early on.

[15] In Wisden, Eric Hill opined that Botham's short-pitched bowling, which was a feature of his play late in the season, was due to him being overused by England and Somerset through the year.