Could Sussex be one of the dark horses in the Royal London One-Day Cup? Coach Ian Salisbury is certainly in a positive frame of mind as his players prepare for their opening game against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge tomorrow (Tuesday 2 August).
The 50 overs competition offers Sussex one last chance to salvage something from another disappointing season.
They are next to bottom in the County Championship second division with only one win so far and their performance in the Vitality Blast – when they finished seventh in the South Group – was their worst for a decade.
But there are reasons for optimism, not least that compared with 2021 Sussex’s ranks have not been decimated by call-ups to the Hundred.
In fact, of Sussex players in the tournament, only George Garton would probably be involved in the 50 overs tournament and he is still recovering from long covid.
But there will still be wholesale changes to the side which finished last year’s competition by beating Middlesex, one of their two victories.
From that team, skipper Tom Haines is out with a broken finger and Ben Brown, David Wiese, Will Beer and Travis Head are no longer at Hove.
Steven Finn, Ollie Robinson and Chet Pujara were all left out of the side which beat Oxfordshire in Sunday’s warm-up match and will come into contention at Trent Bridge while Tom Alsop is in line to replace the injured Haines and could captain and keep wicket, as he did against Oxfordshire.
Bradley Curry and Ari Karvelas, who have made an impact in red-ball cricket in the last couple of weeks, could get their opportunity too.
Pujara averages 54.20 in List A cricket, even though he has only played five ODIs for India. Sussex’s hopes could depend on him having a similar impact to the Championship, where he has scored 1,094 runs this season.
Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge is a tough start – and Sussex’s group also includes well-resourced sides like Warwickshire and Surrey, who are among the favourites to reach the final at Trent Bridge on Saturday 17 September.
But with the Hundred taking away star names from most of the counties it looks like an open field. Few would have predicted that last year’s final would be contested by Glamorgan and Durham.
After facing Nottinghamshire, Sussex have two home games against Leicestershire on Friday (5 August) and Gloucestershire two days later.
“We can’t wait to get started,” said Salisbury. “We have Cheteshwar (Pujara) available and the young players who we played in the competition a year ago have all got a year’s experience under their belt. We want to be competitive and believe we can give the tournament a red-hot go.”
