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Sussex 527 beat Gloucestershire 367 & 158 by an innings and 2 runs
SUSSEXare moving in the right direction according to Ben Brown – and he doesn’t see why their journey won’t end in an immediate return to the First Division.
Brown played his part as Sussex thrashed Gloucestershire by an innings, scoring his second hundred of the season as the county won only their second Championship game since dropping out of the top flight.They remain 40 points adrift of top spot, but do have a game in hand and Brown believes three wins from their remaining five matches might be enough to pip leaders Essex – especially now their bowling attack is firing.
Brown said: “No one has run away with the division and we are very much in the promotion contest.
“If a couple of things had gone our way we feel we would have beaten Essex at Colchester last week, so we were desperate to win this game. If we can win another two of our last five we are going to be right up there and three wins could definitely get us promoted.”
It wasn’t quite like the days when Mushtaq Ahmed swarmed all over the opposition batsmen, but the way Sussex’s seam attack, supported by left-arm spinner Danny Briggs, bowled in Gloucestershire’s second innings certainly evoked memories of the all-conquering teams of a decade ago.
Wicketkeeper Brown had the best view in the house as England’s Chris Jordan took four secondinnings wickets, but he was just as impressed with Steve Magoffin, who finished with seven victims in the match, South African all-rounder David Wiese and the young tyro Jofra Archer.
“As a unit I thought we were fantastic,” said Brown. “CJ didn’t bowl well in the first innings, but he showed an awful lot of character to come back and take four wickets that helped set up the win.
“We have been crying out for someone like Wiese, who can take wickets by swinging the ball in the middle of the innings and bat as well. It’s probably the first time we’ve had that since Robin MartinJenkins retired.
“Jofra Archer is a fantastic prospect. Their batsmen struggled to pick him up because his arm is coming from above the sightscreen. His approach to the wicket is fairly languid, but he is bowling at 85mph plus, back of a length outside offstump – that is hard work no matter how good a batsman you are.
“We had a strong attack out, but it’s easy to forget there are four seamers who have been regulars in the team this season – Ollie Robinson, Ajmal Shahzad, George Garton and Stu Whittingham – who weren’t involved. When conditions suit them, when there is a bit of help in the wicket, our attack will be a real handful.”
It also helped that Sussex put more than 500 on the board. Luke Wells led the way with 120 and Brown was able to come in and go for his shots from the start.
“The guys in the top order laid the foundations with the way they batted,” he added. “I certainly wanted to be positive when I went out there. They were perhaps tired after being out in the field so long and when we bowled we kind of caught them on the hop.”
Gloucestershire skipper Michael Klinger admitted frail top-order batting let them down: “In the second innings we were under pressure from good bowling and weren’t able to withstand that,” said the centurion.
“We need to get better [as a batting unit]. We can’t be a top-two or three team if we keep doing that.We need to be more consistent, that’s when we will become a better side.”