Sussex 528 and 126-3
Warwickshire 454
Sussex lead Warwickshire by 200 runs with seven 2nd innings wickets remaining.
Warwickshire and Sussex appear destined to start their Rothesay County Championship Division One season with a draw after three sun and run-soaked days at Edgbaston.
Sussex closed the third day on 126-3 in their second innings, 200 ahead overall, having taken a first innings lead of 74.
It is a solid advantage but taking 10 wickets quickly on the final day on a pitch offering some turn but which remains batter-friendly would require very something special from the bowlers.
The match was pretty much consigned to a draw on the third afternoon when Warwickshire, replying to 528, reached 379 to avoid the follow on.
They went on to total 454 thanks to Rob Yates (115, 159 balls), Ed Barnard (82, 136), Alex Davies (66, 65) and Dan Mousley (63, 105).
Jack Carson took four for 92, a highly commendable effort in the excellent batting conditions.
Sussex have a significant lead but, in such conditions, a last-day declaration would have to be very carefully judged as a run-chase would heavily favour the batting side.
After Warwickshire resumed on the third morning on 223-3, Sussex struck early.
Ollie Robinson needs to fire early this season to advance his case for an England recall and he has started strongly in this match with several hostile spells in conditions favouring the bat.
He removed the well-set Yates with the 21st ball of the day, a perfectly pitched leg-cutter which was edged behind.
Robinson then unfurled another fine ball which Mousley, still to score, edged to slip, but Tom Alsop grassed the catch. Less impressive was his next wicket-taking ball – a full toss which Ethan Bamber belted straight to mid-wicket.
At 252-5, still 127 short of the follow on, Warwickshire needed steadying and Mousley and Barnard provided the necessary stability with a stand of 124 in 32 overs.
Mousley, his long-awaited maiden first class starting to beckon, exploited his early reprieve to bat attractively but departed furious at himself for missing a sweep at Carson and falling lbw.
Barnard struck seven fours and two sixes in an increasingly fluent innings before he fell lbw to a fine ball from Danny Lamb.
Kai Smith’s punchy 27 (32 balls) ended when he lifted Carson to long on and Michael Booth fell in similar fashion after Tazeem Ali edged Lamb to second slip.
Sussex were left with a session to bat and they spent it enhancing their lead in less than scintillating fashion for the loss of three wickets to the spinners.
Yates added two wickets to his earlier century as he had Daniel Hughes (33, 34) caught at slip and Tom Haines (34, 50) lbw, half-forward.
Tom Clark offered no shot to a sharply turning ball from Tazeem Ali and was adjudged lbw.
The degree of turn in that last dismissal offers some hope of purposeful cricket tomorrow but it will take some monumentally good or careless cricket for this match to yield a winner and a loser.
Sussex spinner Jack Carson said: “It’s always nice to start the season with a few wickets. I only picked up a few towards the end of the innings but I felt I deserved it.
“You keep plugging away and sometimes you get your rewards. There are a few of us making the step up to Div One cricket and you want to show people you can do well and contribute in Div One so it’s nice to start with a couple of wickets and hopefully now I can kick on.
“It’s quite a flat wicket but there is a little bit of rough offering some spin and bite. It’s still a really good wicket on the stumps and in the danger zones but that rough is starting to crumble elsewhere so it might cause a few problem for the batters.
“There is a definitely still a chance of a result. You never know with championship cricket so we will come in tomorrow with our own ideas of how to go about it and see how it looks.”
Warwickshire all-rounder Ed Barnard said: “It was nice to get some runs and good to bat some time with Dan Mousley who played beautifully.
“They bowled really well this morning and then again with the new ball. Seales and Robinson are high quality bowlers so we knew we had to get through that spell.
“But we also knew it was a good pitch so if we could see off the new ball hopefully it would get easier.
“We are really pleased with how the last hour went. It could easily have got away from us with the short boundary and the good pitch but the spinners bowled beautifully.
“Tazeem has been excellent all game and I was really pleased he got that wicket towards the end.
“We’ll see how it goes tomorrow. We’d back ourselves to chase anything on that pitch so if we can bowl well in the morning, even if they don’t want to set something up, we’ll be trying to take those seven wickets to give ourselves a chance.”
