The view from the middle of the bottom: A Sussex ICC 2000 story

[Dodgy]

Sussex romp home!

On the back of a fine century from captain Murray Goodwin (unbeaten on 102 from only 80 ball), aided by support play from Montgomerie (27), Adams (28 from 15) and Martin-Jenkins (52 from 42), Sussex made light work of the target to record a five wicket win within 38 overs.

The first wicket partnership was again brittle, with Ward falling early, but Sussex never looked in any real trouble, with runs flowing from the bat. Graeme Welsh and Ian Hunter (0/36 from 7) started tidily, with Welch bowling Ward, and Hunter bogging Montgomerie down, but Goodwin never looked in trouble, scoring at will against the relative inexperienced spin trio of Ant Botha (0/38 off 8), Chris Paget 1/32 (6), and Andrew Gray (3/58 from 7) although Gray did take the vital wickets of Montgomerie, Adams and Hopkinson for a golden duck to slow the Sussex slugfest.

By the time the experienced medium pace of Graeme Welsh (1/71 from 9.3) returned to the bowling crease, Goodwin and Prior were hitting the ball sweetly to draw this mis-match to a close earlier than most would have anticipated at the lunch interval.

 

[Dodgy]

The win will give the Sussex side a shot in the arm and reinforce the feeling within the side that they can beat anyone on their day. Rather worryingly for Eccles, however, will be the lack of penetration from his bowling attack, who only managed to take 3 wickets in fifty overs, one to a part-timer and a bad shot, and one to a suicidal run by the opposition. This is likely to be top of the list as the team head back into training this week, and will result in net time for the entire squad as they look to add sharpness to the game that has been missing in the campaign so far.

Eccles will not doubt have the talent scouts out looking for a couple of genuine strike bowlers to support the line and length of Martin-Jenkins and the wicket to wicket bowling of Kirtley next season!

 

[Dodgy]

Eccles will also be concerned about the lack of a form number 5 batsman. Carl Hopkinson, like Tim Ambrose before him, has been tried and found wanting. How long will it be before Eccles’s patience runs out and he trials yet another batting combination?

 

[Dodgy]

Sussex are into the semis and are at home to Warwickshire in he County Championship. Let us see how the opening bowling stacks up and who will occupy the troublesome number five slot?

Team sheets shortly.

 

[Blaze]

Will be very interested to see how your trading goes.. I am doing a similar re building thing with Derbyshere atm. I came last in both forms two years running, before some smart recruiting got me up to the 1st division in both forms.

James Bryant is worth a look if he becomes avaliable. Him, Travis Friend and Botha are my Kolpak players. Also managed to pick up Marcus Trescothick and Riki Wessels this year and Sewhag as my international star. Previously had Shaun Pollock and Jaques Kallis filling that role.

Aside from that I mainly have developed youth players and they are starting to come through nicely. Wouldn't be surprised if I had 4 or 5 England international players in a couple of years time.

 

[Dodgy]

I'm looking forward to it and not, all at the same time. My feeling at the moment is I want to get shot of the whole team - they are not performing. Wonder if I'll feel better at the end of the season?

Thanks for your comment Blaze - always a pleasure.

Will be very interested to see how your trading goes.. I am doing a similar re building thing with Derbyshere atm. I came last in both forms two years running, before some smart recruiting got me up to the 1st division in both forms.

James Bryant is worth a look if he becomes avaliable. Him, Travis Friend and Botha are my Kolpak players. Also managed to pick up Marcus Trescothick and Riki Wessels this year and Sewhag as my international star. Previously had Shaun Pollock and Jaques Kallis filling that role.

Aside from that I mainly have developed youth players and they are starting to come through nicely. Wouldn't be surprised if I had 4 or 5 England international players in a couple of years time.

 

[Dodgy]

Team sheet is attached.

Eccles for the meantime has resisted the urge to make changes, means young Luke Wright will make his debut, taking the new ball with Rob Kirtley. The middle order all retain their places, despite scratchy performances thus far. The onus will be on the players to perform.

Len Lumet (former Sussex youth player) is starting to perform well in the Warwickshire seconds, but will at this stage, play no part in the match.

 

[Dodgy]

Lost the toss and have been inserted, on a pitch likely to seam and spin as the game progresses. Bad start because I wanted to insert them and roll them quickly.

 

[Dodgy]

Solid partnership between Montgomerie (52) and Goodwin (64) of 120 the only features in an otherwise disappointing batting display. The rest of the order was woeful and Sussex collapsed from 133/1 to 247 all out.

South African internationals Dewald Pretorius (3/58) and Mahakya Ntini (2/31) bowled with pace and venom, and Scottish international, the ever popular Dougie Brown, highlighted the difference between the two sides, bowling at first change after the breakthroughs had been made, capturing 3/59 with his economical medium pace.

Sussex have every reason to be disgusted with their performance with the bat, even more so given Warwickshire gave away 30 extras in the course of the first innings, so it will be interesting to see what coach Eccles says before they take the field when Warwickshire begin their reply.

 

[Dodgy]

Great bowling from Kirtley and in the later part of the innings, Nash, saw Sussex inch out a first innings lead of 13 runs. The feature of the Warwickshire batting was a partnership between Mike Powell (57) and Jon Trott (53).

A good opening spell from Kirtley (2/38) and Wright (1/57), saw Warwickshire lose two early wickets. Whilst the introduction of Ahmed (2/31), saw the demise of Powell almost immediately, from the other end, Robin Martin-Jenkins (0/54) gave away far too many easy runs.

The ease with which Warwickshire were scoring lead Goodwin to make a calculated gamble with the early-that-expected introduction of the off-spinner Nash, who surprised everybody except himself by taking his first five-fer in his county career.

Warwickshire spun out mid-way through the second day and Sussex take a slender lead into the third innings. It would also fill the Sussex supporters with confidence that they possess in the team a quality leg spinner and an up-and-coming offie.

 

[Dodgy]

Sussex crash and burn and with it goes any hope of winning outright.

With plenty of time to go in the match, Sussex plan should have been to bat a couple of sessions, get a lead of 300 odd and then set attacking fields and attempt to spin them out a second time.

What happened: Only two partnerships developed of ten or greater and the only one of substance was between the captain Goodwin (43) and the all-rounder Martin-Jenkins (34). Sussex simple had no answers to the pace and movement of Pretorius (3/30), the accuracy of Ntini (2/11), or the wheelie bin (?) bowling of Giles (5/38), as Sussex succumbed to sustained pressure from the opposition and self destructed.

All out for 115; a further embarrassment for the Hove faithful, leaving Warwickshire a measly target of 128 with nearly four sessions remaining.

 

[Dodgy]

Warwickshire romp home.

Chasing a mere 128 for victory , Martin-Jenkins did not bowl, with Goodwin electing to open with Wright (1/28) and Kirtley (1/15), who kept it tight, and then employ the spin of Ahmed (2/42) and Nash (1/44). Warwickshire across the finish line with five wickets and the best part of two sessions to spare.

For Warwickshire, Jon Trott making a quickfire 41 and Jamie Troughton guiding them home with an unbeaten 25 to ensure there were no last minute jitters. Ashley Giles was named Man of the Match for his 5/38 in Sussex's second innings to give his team an easy total to chase down.

The captain Goodwin said after the match “We just did not bat well enough.” Goodwin obviously has a flare for stating the obvious.

 

[Dodgy]

Comments from the coach Eccles were more profound. “The team could and should have made far better use of the first day pitch, batted for longer and then would have had a bigger lead. With another 80 or so runs on the board, it would have been an interesting last session with the pitch breaking up.”

 

[Dodgy]

The next match is an National League game at home against Worcestershire. Let's hope we can put our disppointing four-day form behind us and concentrate on excelling in the one day arena!

 

[Dodgy]

What a surprise - no players selected for England against Zimbabwe.

Trescothick, Vaughan, Thorpe, Bell, Strauss, Shah, Wallace, Croft, Ali, Gough, Hoggard, Harmison.

Maybe next time.

 

[Dodgy]

Eccles has kept the press in suspense as he refuses to divulge any team information until the toss is taken. It does not take a genius to conclude that he is extremely disappointed with the result in the Warwickshire game, and dare it be said that some of the players would have felt the sharp end of his tongue after the match was over.

Who will be dropped, if anyone, is being hotly debated on talkback radio, wiith some vocal minorities calling for Eccles to be sacked in favour of Mark Robinson, the current second eleven coach.

Eccles would also be feeling the pinch, with his team sitting firmly at the bottom of the division two table, and David only proportedly on a one year rolling contract.

 

[Dodgy]

Team sheet is attached.

After some disappointing efforts, the incumbent number 5 batsman, Carl Hopkinson is dropped back to the seconds in favour of Neil Turk, a left hander bat, who has scored two fifties and a couple of not out scores. Management will be hopeful that Turk is running into a bit of form. Turk will be making his one day debut in this match.

The only other change to the side sees improving all rounder Chris Nash promoted up the order to number seven in a straight batting order change with Matt Prior. It would not be a surprise to see Nash going in at number six, nor Prior at 4.

Form in the seconds is still patchy. On the "good news" front, Jase Lewry is looking like he could be pushing Wright for a position in the first team soon. "Bad news" is despite specialist batting coaching and intensive physio workouts, the form of Tim Ambrose, earmarked as a future Sussex captain in the making last year, is still poor.

 

[Dodgy]

Sussex have won the toss and will bowl.

 

[Dodgy]

Worcestershire posted a disappointing 168/4 from their 45 allotted overs.

Wright (1/51 from 9)and Kirtley (1/17 from 8) again bowled tightly in their opening spells, although Wright took some punishment late in the piece. Vikram Solanki went early, trapped by one that nipped back from Kirtley. Young opener Stephen Moore then combined well with the aggressive veteran Graeme Hick to try and prize the game away with a partnership of 117, before Hick attempted to slog a Wright delivery out of the park and successfully found Chris Nash at cover. Guess he picked the wrong one, as he departed for an uncharacteristically quiet 55 from 90 balls. Four runs later Moore left the middle with his highest first class score to his name, having padded up to a Ahmed delivery that came back and would have pinned his middle stump back. Moore on his way for a well compiled 68 from 109 deliveries. Stephen Peters, who hasn’t seen terribly much game time since debuting for Essex four years ago, would be wishing that he had missed this game, has he missed a straight one from Martin-Jenkins(1/34 from 9) and was out for a duck.

Zander De Bruyn and David Leatherdale kept the scorecard ticking over and Ahmed (1/25 from 9) and Nash (0/37 from 9) were again unlucky not to have more wickets.

Sussex, who have been experts at restricting the scoring opportunities this season in the one day format, would be quietly confident of knocking the score off.

 

[Dodgy]

Sussex squeaks home again by one wicket and on the last ball of the match.

The openers Montogomerie (43 from 78) and Ward (43 from 38), seemed to be cruising along at 73 without loss. Enter the unlikely figure of Gareth Batty to bring a halt to proceedings. Once Batty drew Ward into a false shot, Goodwin and Montgomerie re-established themselves before disaster struck and Goodwin (29 from 37) chopped a ball from fellow Zimbabwean Ray Price (2/20 from eight) onto his stumps. Chris Adams made three before he attempted to cut a ball to close to him and edged it to young ‘keeper Davies. Zander de Bruyn then struck with the second ball of the twenty-seventh over to have the anchorman Montgomerie caught at slip. Martin-Jenkins missed a swinging ball in de Bruyn’s next over to have Sussex reeling at 127/5. But unfortunately for Sussex, the Zander de Bruyn show wasn’t over yet either. Two over and ten runs later, de Bruyn struck in two balls, removing the improving all-rounder Chris Nash (9 from 7) and the aggressive Matt Prior, for a first ball duck, ending with the excellent figures of 4/44 from nine overs.

Turk and new batman Kirtley decided that survival was the only way forward from 137/7 chasing 169, so they defended solidly against Batty, Leatherdale (0/32 off 9) and the express pace of Akhtar (0/39). Batty, who ended with the figures of 3/32 from 9, began the 36th over by spinning a wide ball passed the bat of Kirtley, the second ball cannoned into the off stump and Sussex were further in the hole at 145/8 still requiring a further 24 runs to win. When Turk was caught from a genuine edge during the over, and reducing Sussex to 146/9, a Sussex victory looked increasingly unlikely. However, the last pair of Wright (7 no from 31 balls) and Ahmed (17 no from 23) played within there limitations and took the runs on offer, while the run rate started to trend upwards.

Final over, six balls, six runs needed one wicket in hand. The atmosphere was very tense, as the field placements were set and then re-set. Ray Price the bowler, Wright the facing batsman, both batsman hell bent on aggressive running at this stage, managed to chip away and the first five balls somehow yielded five runs. Final ball of the match, Price the bowler, Wright again the batman, would Wright be able to squirt the ball through the ring field and complete the run, which would allow Sussex to snatch back victory from the jaws of defeat.

Ball is struck through mid-off where the fielder is standing a tad too deep and cannot prevent the run being taken. Sussex takes the four points in a nervous finish for them.