Nottinghamshire 232-9 (83 overs)
Nottinghamshire (0 points) lead Sussex (3 points) by 232 runs with 1 first innings wicket remaining
Sussex’s seam bowlers made it hard work for title-chasing Nottinghamshire on day one at Hove, until they were boosted by a ninth-wicket stand of 74 between Brett Hutton and Tom Giles.
Hutton batted for more than two and a half hours for his superb 59 not out, completing his fifty from 112 balls, while Giles was bowled by a Tom Price nip-backer just before the close for 32.
The defending champions were put in after Haseeb Hameed lost the toss for the sixth successive game and they reached 232-9 by stumps.
Sussex have ambitions to emulate last season’s fourth-placed finish despite their 12-point deduction – and their disciplined seam attack didn’t give Nottinghamshire much leeway all day, with Jaydev Unadkat capturing his 500th first-class wicket.
Although a good pitch offered only a little seam movement, there was swing all day, particularly before lunch, with heavy cloud cover and the floodlights on.
The visitors did well to reach the interval having lost only three wickets but three more followed in the afternoon after 13 overs had been lost following lunchtime rain as Notts struggled to build partnerships.
Sussex’s seamers were excellent throughout in the line and lengths they bowled, although Hameed and Ben Slater got through 14 overs unscathed in adding 47 before three wickets fell for the addition of 19 runs.
The skipper himself was first to go, playing away from his body and caught low down at slip by Charlie Tear off Price, who was playing his first Championship game since mid-June having struggled with injury in his first season at Hove.
Only six runs were scored in the five overs after Hameed’s dismissal before Sussex struck again with Ari Karvelas conceding just four runs in six overs as the pressure built.
Slater had played watchfully for his 21 and when he’d scored three he passed 10,000 first-class runs.
But when left-armer Sean Hunt came back into the attack it took him just four balls to break through, as Slater pushed forward at a ball angled into him and edged to Tom Clark, who held a good low catch at second slip.
Freddie McCann was dismissed by another left-armer, Unadkat, betrayed by a lack of footwork and giving John Simpson a straightforward catch behind the stumps.
Rain started falling just before lunch and 13 overs were lost but Joe Clarke and Jack Haynes briefly prospered, adding 36 in eight overs before Sussex hit back.
Unadkat collected his second wicket with a ball of fuller length which straightened and Haynes edged it to second slip.
It was Karvelas who picked up the key wicket of Clarke, the division’s leading run-scorer. Clarke seemed to have done the hard yards as he progressed to 36, passing 1,300 Championship runs for the season.
But his normally immaculate timing was awry when he drove Karvelas’s outswinger to extra cover. At that stage the immaculate Karvelas had figures of 14-7-12-1.
Mitch Hay, dropped on one, drove at another outswinger – this time from Price – and Tear took a good catch low to his left, and then Liam Patterson-White was taken at second slip when Hunt returned and found some late movement as the batsman defended off the back foot.
Unadkat’s big moment came when Olly Stone (4) dragged on in the 58th over but, 24 overs later, the battling efforts of Hutton and Giles dragged the day back for the champions.
Notts had made a last-minute addition to their side by signing Indian seamer Mukesh Kumar, who has taken 233 first-class wickets in a career played entirely in his home country. He could have a big part to play with the ball.
Unadkat said: “I guess 500 wickets shows I’ve played a lot of cricket. But it’s something I’m really proud of.
“Playing first-class cricket was a dream but, when I started, I thought I’d get 100 wickets, then 200 – and now I’ve got a few more.
“To get to 500 is a special occasion and I’m going to treasure it for a long time.
“I feel happy that it’s happened here at Sussex. It’s been a special journey to come here for the last four seasons. The group of players is fantastic and I love coming here.”
Hutton said: “We’ve done well to get to where we are. We scrapped hard and for Gilo (Tom Giles) to do what he did there was unbelievable, to take that pressure on and bat the way he did. He was up for the scrap.
“The milestone of reaching 50 doesn’t matter. It is a matter of getting the points to help us win the game. We’re a team of people who put their hand up when the team needs it.
“To make them have to come out and have to bowl again tomorrow. We’ll keep battling and we feel like we’re in the game. We’ve got a team of warriors.”
