Batting first, Derbyshire made fantastic use of a belter of a wicket. Wright (0/29 from 10) and Kirtley (0/41 from 9) bowled tightly, with Kirtley having two close leg before decisions turned down against Stephen Stubbings. The introduction of Martin-Jenkins usually slows the scoring, but even he was expensive, bowling his ten end on end to finish with 0/54, an effort that he will surely be disappointed with.
The introduction of Ahmed (1/36 from 10) yielded instance results, with Stubbings getting a leading edge from a defensive push back to the bowler. However, if Sussex thought that the wicket was going to peg the scoring rate back, they were mistaken. Enter James Bryant, who proceeded to cart all comers to all parts of the ground. Young Chris Nash, who had Mike Di Venuto dropped close in by Hopkinson when he was on 33, proceeded to be smashed around Hove, finally finishing with the unlucky figures of 0/64 from ten. He just simply had the misfortune to be bowling to players in extremely good form.
Goodwin, who was probably hoping that he hadn’t made an awful mistake by giving Derby the first use of the wicket, bowled the 48th over, hoping that a change of pace might create a chance. With his second ball he deceived Bryant and bowled him, and with his fourth ball, Di Venuto attempted what can only be described as a “dumb run” which left Luke Sutton well short of his ground. Di Venuto ended the innings unbeaten on 104 from 150 balls as Derbyshire were reasonably well placed on 234/3.
Sussex would be thankful that the total was not considerably larger, given the wickets in hand in the last twenty overs. Given the bowling attack at Derbyshire’s disposal they would be confident of knocking the runs off. In Derbyshire’s favour however, they have the runs on the board.
