Sussex managed to stop the bleeding against Durham at the weekend and although a County Championship win remains elusive there were plenty of encouraging signs after a chastening start to the season.
If you broke down the game into 12 sessions, Sussex won eight of them. The trouble was the four that Durham took happened to be the last four. When they began their second innings they still needed 315 runs to make Sussex bat again and home supporters were dreaming of a first Championship win in over a year.
But in 51 overs on day three their bowlers failed to part Durham openers Alex Lees and Sean Dickson and, when Lees was badly dropped on the boundary early on the fourth by Mason Crane, Sussex’s last chance of winning the game had gone.
Lees went on to make 105 and Dickson 186 and by the time Crane removed them both in the same over shortly after lunch Durham only needed two runs to clear their arrears – the first-wicket pair having compiled the fourth-biggest partnership in Durham’s history.
It’s now 16 games since Sussex’s last four-day win against Glamorgan last April. You have to go back to August 2020 for their last success at Hove.
There weren’t any spectators in the ground for that game against Hampshire so Sussex supporters last witnessed a home victory in the County Championship back in August 2019. That was against Middlesex, who coincidentally are the visitors this Thursday (5 May).
They have started the season well with two wins and sit third in the table. At least the 15 points Sussex took from the draw against Durham enabled them to move off the bottom of Division Two. After hitting rock bottom against Worcestershire last week, it was a small but morale-boosting move in the right direction.
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Crane was one of two bowlers in the side signed on loan last week as injuries continue to decimate the bowling attack. The Hampshire leg-spinner picked up four wickets and is looking forward to playing four games of red-ball cricket before he returns to his parent county for the start of the Vitality Blast.
Shoreham-born, Crane was part of the Sussex age-group system but Hampshire spotted him when he attended Lancing College and he ended up along the A27.
The other loanee is Essex seamer Aaron Beard, who finished with three wickets and got 33.5 overs under his belt. A slow pitch made it hard work for bowlers, but Beard and Crane looked useful acquisitions until Sussex get some of their own players fit.
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What did frustrate onlookers at Hove, as Sussex struggled for second-innings wickets, was the sight of Ollie Robinson being put through his paces during the intervals. As a centrally contracted player it was the ECB, rather than Sussex, who decreed that Robinson wasn’t fit to complete a four-day match, but a frustrated Salisbury is “pretty sure” he will be in the line-up to face Middlesex.
As well as Robinson, George Garton and off-spinner Jack Carson also got some practice overs under their belt during the Durham game. Carson could return in the tour match against New Zealand at the end of the month but Garton’s recovery from long Covid might take a little longer.
The left-arm quick bowler Sean Hunt has recovered from a broken finger and could be involved against Middlesex but, on the debit side, Fynn Hudson-Prentice and all-rounder Dan Ibrahim are some way off a return and Steve Finn won’t face his former county either. Finn was due to have a scan on his knee this week, having missed the last two matches.
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What pleased Salisbury most about the Durham performance was that his batting unit didn’t waste the advantage the bowlers secured by dismissing Durham for just 223 on the first day.
Tom Haines looked in great nick as he scored another fifty and Tom Alsop and Mohammad Rizwan made their first significant scores for Sussex, but all three were overshadowed by another majestic innings from Cheteshwar Pujara, whose 203 took his aggregate in just five innings to 531 runs.
There was a bit of scepticism when Sussex announced his signing. In three previous county stints Pujara averaged a modest 28 but he has found the seaside – and second division attacks – very much to his liking.
Salisbury says he is having a positive impact on his team-mates too: “They are learning so much from him, not just when they bat with him but in terms of his application and preparation.”
It’s been a while since Sussex supporters were able to watch one of their batsmen so utterly dominate an attack as “Puj” did at Hove last week. The hope must be that he continues in this vein of form and Sussex can get a few more front-line bowlers fit. Then, that near three-year wait to see their side win a four-day game at Hove might finally end.
Follow Bruce Talbot on Twitter @brucetalbot1.
