Sussex close to victory
Sussex CCC have only won one match all season drawing the other eight. League leaders Essex have lost two but won three. Still with six games left after this match against Gloucestershire and with Sussex having a game in hand a late winning run would mean promotion. Sussex had Gloucestershire pinned back at 37-4 on the first morning but thanks to Aussie Michael Klinger they rallied and posted a total of 367. Sussex replied with 527 with centuries from Luke Wells and Ben Brown. The wicket finally gave hope to the bowlers and Chris Jordan took 4 wickets . At stumps Gloucestershire trailed by 12 runs with only 2 wickets left. It should be over in the first hour today.
It’s been an unsatisfactory season. After the will-he-won’t-he-join-us Fizz Rahman did appear in Sussex, played two matches, got injured and left us. David Wiese is back from the Caribbean bash and reflects the roving modern day cricketer who has no real attachment to his county as Imran Khan and Murray Goodwin so successfully did for us. Luke Wright, normally a source of reliable runs, was injured when he picked up his child and is yet to score a century. The successes have been Chris Nash with the bat and emerging youngsters Stuart Whittingham, George Garton, Phil Salt and Harry Finch. In the white ball format Sussex finished bottom of the London South and failed to qualify in the T20. Most of us recall 3 league championships and other trophies in the noughties.
Hove is a glorious place to watch cricket in the sun. Sadly the ECB in their wisdom only gives us one home fixture in August. True there was not an enormous crowd, I would say 1000-1500, which lends support to those that say that the profit lies in the T20 game. Yet will any of these Sussex youngsters learn the grammar of the game if they only play crash bang wallop cricket?
