Sussex comfortably beat Warwickshire in thrilling final day

They turned a certain draw into victory thanks to a dream fourth day’s play.

A decent crowd was treated to some magnificent bowling by Sussex in gloriously sunny weather from spinner James Tredwell who bagged 4-7 and England paceman Chris Jordan who took 3-38.

Sussex began Thursday at 204-4 and went in search of some quick runs to give themselves a chance of getting a result from the game.

Steffan Piolet topscored with 22 as Sussex put on 41 in 16.1 overs before declaring intelligently at 245-9 which left Warwickshire a glimmer of hope with a target of 326 to win off 77 possible overs.

Fast bowler Chris Jordan tore into the opening batsmen, taking out three of the top four with the score only on nine. He took 3 wickets for 2 runs off his first nine balls.

They were opener Varun Chopra (4), Will Porterfield (0) and the centurian from the first innings, England star Jonathan Trott (1).

Getting Trott out caught behind the wicket by Ben Brown was the turning point in the game as the player most capable of amassing a substantial score was back in the pavilion.

At lunch Warwickshire were struggling at 10-3, needing 326 to win with seven wickets remaining.

After the break Sussex kept the pressure on as offspinner Tredwell took two wickets in an over to dismiss Sam Hain and Rikki Clarke for ducks as Warwickshire were on a precarious 46-6.

Former Sussex wicketkeeper Tim Ambrose had surprisingly opened the visitors’ innings and was the main source of resistance in a 53-run partnership with Chris Woakes before being bowled by another spinner, Horsham cricketer Chris Nash for 56.

Sussex went into tea with high hopes of victory as after Tredwell had put paid to Woakes, caught by Jordan for 14 off the last ball before tea with the score on 99-8.

Remarkably there were to be only four more balls played as the last four wickets fell without adding to the total.

On the first ball of the final session Tredwell took his second wicket in successive deliveries (Jeetan Patel).

Keith Barker’s run out by Louis Hatchett meant Warwickshire were all out for 99 off 40.4 overs which handed Sussex a comfortable victory at 4pm with at least 2.5 hours of play still possible.