Sussex 361 (89.5 overs) and 364 (92.5 overs) – 22 points
Leicestershire 245 (65 overs) and 258 (78.1 overs) – 3 points
Sussex win by 222 runs
Sussex eased the pain of their points deduction with an emphatic 222-run victory over Leicestershire in a successful start to their Rothesay County Championship season.
Ollie Robinson’s team arrived at Uptonsteel Grace Road, in Leicester, at a 12-point disadvantage compared with the other nine Division One counties.
The points penalty was a condition of the financial rescue package agreed with the England and Wales Cricket Board over the winter.
But after Leicestershire fell well short of the mammoth 481 last-innings target needed to pull off an unlikely win, Sussex took 22 points to climb out of the bottom two at the first attempt.
At 125-5 overnight, defeat for Leicestershire was only a matter of time. Stevie Eskinazi (54) and Ben Cox (60) shared a 103-run sixth-wicket stand to help keep the contest going beyond lunch.
Sussex, though, wrapped up the win by bowling the home side out for 258 in the fifth over of the afternoon, pace bowler Henry Crocombe taking 4-36 for match figures of 9-69.
It was a victory that their dominance of the match fully merited, after a century for Tom Clark and five wickets each for Robinson and Crocombe in the first innings.
In the second innings, Jack Carson and Tom Price, who enjoyed an excellent debut after his winter move from Gloucestershire, snuffed out any prospect of a Leicestershire fightback with a 119-run stand in the second innings.
Still 356 runs from their target when the fourth day began, Eskinazi and Cox put into practice exactly what the former had spoken of on the third evening, namely putting the expected result to one side and simply trying to win individual battles and build confidence.
Cox was badly dropped by James Coles at slip off Price on 26 in the fourth over of the morning as he and Eskinazi frustrated Sussex for almost an hour and a half before a breakthrough was made.
On a wicket now offering a degree of turn, albeit slow turn, they faced spinners Coles and Jack Carson in tandem for a dozen overs.
Even so, both notched their first half-centuries of the season, Eskinazi’s off 122 balls with eight fours, Cox more briskly, facing 82 balls and finding seven boundaries.
From the home side’s point of view, anticipating the fillip of a wicketless session, it was a disappointment that when Fynn Hudson-Prentice replaced Carson at the Bennett End, Eskinazi’s concentration lapsed for probably the first time.
The delivery came back in a little but Eskinazi’s response seemed to lack conviction and the ball deflected off an inside edge into the stumps.
The pair had added 103 in 36 overs, the best Leicestershire partnership of the contest. As often happens, though, one wicket brought another for Sussex, Hudson-Prentice tempting Cox into a pull that found Carson on the square-leg boundary.
Coles had Tom Scriven caught at leg slip but, on 244-8 at lunch, it was only a matter of how much longer Leicestershire could resist.
In the event, only four overs and one ball longer as Sam Wood was caught at gully fending off a Crocombe bouncer and Ben Green hooked to square leg.
Sussex had put down a marker in the first session of the opening day, punishing a depleted Leicestershire attack.
They were given early notice that, however impressive they were in winning the Division Two title last summer, there is little margin for error at the higher level.
Clark built on that flying start before Robinson and Crocombe combined to dismiss Leicestershire for 245 despite Australian Test opener Jake Weatherland’s 83 on debut.
Sussex take on Warwickshire at Hove next. They will be without pace bowler Dom Goodman, who also joined from Gloucestershire in the close season. He’s out for three months with a broken rib. Left-arm seamer Sean Hunt also faces a spell on the sidelines.
