LV County Championship Division One, Hove
Sussex 548-4 drew with Yorkshire 273 & 314-8
Sussex 10pts, Yorkshire 5pts
By Jack Bradshaw
Yorkshire batted out the final day to rescue an unlikely draw against Sussex at Hove.
The visitors began the day 29-2, still trailing Sussex by 246 after following-on, but half-centuries from Gary Ballance (73) and Jonny Bairstow (76) helped the Tykes save the game.
Monty Panesar took 5-89, and looked to have won the game for the hosts when Yorkshire found themselves 289-8, only 14 ahead, but Steven Patterson survived 41 balls to stop the rot after successive away defeats.
Batting first, Sussex posted a mammoth 548-4 thanks to superb innings from Murray Goodwin (274) and Luke Wells (174).
Goodwin hit 37 boundaries in the highest score of the County season so far, while Wells passed 500 runs for the season after his third first-class century.
In response, Sussex dismissed Yorkshire for 273, with South African Wayne Parnell taking 3-60 on debut having only arrived in England on the first day of play.
All-rounder Kirk Wernars, also a South African debutant in the match, took 2-13 while Panesar and Amjad Khan each picked up two wickets.
And after Chris Nash dismissed opener Joe Root with the final ball of day three, the hosts were in a strong position with Yorkshire on the ropes at 29-2.
But Sussex could only take six wickets on day four as Ballance survived 207 balls to bat out the remainder of the game.
The Sharks are not in four-day action again until Wednesday 29 June when they take on Warwickshire after a busy Friends Life T20 schedule.
