Nottinghamshire 240 (84.4 overs) and 198 (67.5 overs)
Sussex 358 (110.2 overs) and 76-3 (18 overs)
Sussex (22 points) beat Nottinghamshire (3 points) by 7 wickets
Nottinghamshire’s hopes of a successful title defence are all but over after they lost by seven wickets to Sussex at Hove.
The champions were dismissed for 193 in their second innings and Sussex knocked off a victory target of 76 in 18 overs.
Nottinghamshire now need to win their final game of the season at home to Yorkshire and hope that Warwickshire slip up at home to Leicestershire.
But a more realistic target for Notts is to make sure they secure runners up place.
Meanwhile, Sussex are targeting a top-three finish after Somerset’s defeat at Headingley virtually ended their chances of a first Championship in their history.
Sussex’s sixth win of the season is the same number as Warwickshire and Somerset.
They finish their campaign at bottom-of-the-table Hampshire and will fancy their chances of improving on last season’s fourth-place finish which would be a remarkable effort given that they started the season with a 12-point deduction.
Ari Karvelas led his team-mates off after taking the sixth five-wicket haul of his career and his first for Sussex.
He finished with 5-42, taking his fifth wicket in his second over of the day when Ben Hutton edged a beauty which nipped away off the seam to second slip.
Mitch Hay and Tom Giles briefly held up Sussex with a ninth-wicket stand of 26 and it was off-spinner Jack Carson who finished things off by taking the last two wickets, the only ones in the innings to fall from the sea end.
With his second ball he hit Hay on the back leg and Carson wrapped up the innings when he beat Tom Giles’s defensive push for his second leg-before verdict.
Nottinghamshire’s new-ball pair Olly Stone and Hutton both picked up a wicket at the start of the chase.
Haines was bowled offering no shot when Stone followed three outswingers with a ball that moved in to hit his off stump and Tom Clark was LBW to Hutton trying to flick down the leg side.
Charlie Tear and George Thomas settled any Sussex nerves with a stand of 35 before Tear lost his off stump to Mukesh Kumar’s first ball, which kept a little low.
But Thomas drove Liam Patterson-White’s left-arm spin for a straight six to get the target down to single figures and Carter cut Patterson-White to the boundary in the next over to secure the victory 20 minutes after lunch.
Nottinghamshire coach Peter Moores said: “It was a good toss for Sussex to win. We did well to get to 240.
“But I think we’ll look back and say we didn’t bowl as well as we can in their first innings. We didn’t quite get our lengths right and allowed them to get away.
“There was no lack of effort from everybody but obviously losing those seven wickets last night made it very difficult.
“Sussex played better and in Ari Karvelas they had the best bowler in the game but it’s only our third Championship loss in 29 and I’ve got enough experience to know that (in terms of the title race) anything can still happen in the last round and we’re looking forward now to finishing off with a good performance against Yorkshire next week.”
Sussex head coach Paul Farbrace said: “People talked about the last six weeks being tough mentally and physically for the players and did we have the squad to compete but we’ve shown that we have and I couldn’t be more proud of every single one of them.
“We have more than shown how good a team we’ve got at Sussex and once again we’ve seen people come into the team and make a contribution against a very good Notts team.
“I thought Ari Karvales was fantastic. That spell of 3-17 in 10 overs last night was a match-winning one but it sums up the efforts of everyone in our squad.”
