Sussex supporters had better make the most of the opportunity to salute their most consistent batsman of the last four years in the final game of the season next week.

Murray Goodwin has scored more runs than anyone else since he came to the county in 2001 but the Championship match with Surrey at Hove, which starts next Thursday, looks like being his last for Sussex.

Director of cricket Peter Moores has been told to slash the playing budget by £100,000 and it appears increasingly likely that Goodwin will be the high-profile casualty of the spending cuts.

The 31-year-old will forever be remembered by Sussex supporters. It was his boundary which clinched the club's first Championship a year ago and he went on to break the county's batting record in the same game against Leicestershire with an unbeaten 335.

Goodwin would love to return to Hove for a fifth season and he believes the pressure he put himself under to try and make that happen has been responsible for his disappointing form this summer which has seen him score just one Championship century and average a modest 30.80.

Wherever he ends up next season, and he is considering firm offers from two other counties at the moment, it will be as a Kolpak registration rather than as an overseas player.

That would almost certainly mean taking a cut in wages but Goodwin would get the security of a longer contract rather than a one-year deal which is the most he can expect from Sussex. Derbyshire, whose coach Dave Houghton worked with Goodwin when he coached Zimbabwe, are among the counties trying to sign him.

"I've been offered a couple of contracts under Kolpak, but I would rather stay here at Sussex with the option of going Kolpak," he said.

Sussex will hold contract talks with their staff in the next few days including Goodwin, but it's hard to see how they will be able to keep him.

Moores raised £52,000 last year from a group of sponsors to help fund Goodwin's contract for 2004. In return, they were allowed more exclusive access to the players. That arrangement, which was called 'The Overseas Club', may become permanent this winter but Goodwin is under pressure from the other counties who want to sign him to make a decision before he returns to play for Western Australia in three weeks.

He certainly does not want a repeat of last winter when he only knew he was returning to Hove in March after Sussex's original target, South African Gary Kirsten, turned them down. The whole saga showed up the county in a poor light and, if Goodwin felt let down, he had every right to be.

He said: "In December I was told they weren't going to offer me a new deal and when things fell through with Kirsten I was about to sign for Nottinghamshire under Kolpak.

"I got over 1,500 runs last season and still wasn't first choice as overseas batsman so when I came back this year I put myself under pressure to do even better than that so I could get another contract.

"I haven't put the runs on the board this year - it's as simple as that - but I've found the slow pitches a bit more difficult and maybe the opposition bowling has been better at me."

Although Sussex have failed to defend the Championship, Goodwin believes they are capable of a prolonged period of success similar to that enjoyed by Surrey under Adam Hollioake, providing the investment in the playing staff is maintained.

"The nucleus of the current squad has been together for a while now and I've been proud to be part of it," he said. "There is a great spirit but if you compromised it by reducing the staff and what you pay players you never know how it might affect things."

Sussex lost £360,000 last year and are bracing themselves for another deficit this year with the Spen Cama legacy not likely to boost the county's coffers until November at the earliest.

Moores has already confirmed there will be few additions to the playing staff next season and the feeling around Hove is that the ever-improving Michael Yardy or Tim Ambrose should get the chance to step into Goodwin's shoes.

Goodwin has been around long enough not to make any predictions when asked where his future lies.

"Who knows? After how I performed in 2003 I was 99 per cent sure I would be offered a new contract straight away by Sussex but it never happened," he said. "I'm just trying to finish the season as well as I can and then we'll see what happens."