Chris Adams believes Sussex can still make a promotion charge in the second half of the totesport League season.

The county reached the halfway mark in their Division Two campaign with just two teams below them yesterday after their match against bottom-of-the table Scottish Saltires was abandoned.

Sussex had reached 57-2 from 10.2 overs when the rain arrived, although it was not until 5.25pm that play was finally called off with the teams taking two points each.

Adams believes 40 points will get the county back in the top flight, where they spent one season in 2000. Five of their remaining nine games are away from home, starting at Leicester next Sunday.

He said: "The thing about this competition, and I say the same thing every year, is that if you can put together three or four wins on the trot you can catapult up the table, especially if you beat sides who are above you.

"Our perennial problem seems to be that we can't get off to a good start.

"We won our first game this season but lost the next four. But the signs were encouraging against Durham on Wednesday, it's just a pity we weren't able to build on it."

Adams has been pleased with Sussex's improved batting performances in the 45 overs format this season and rightly so.

Three of the top four are averaging more than 45 and IanWard and Matt Prior, the new opening pair, both have hundreds to their name.

But Sussex have struggled to consistently put sides under pressure in the field and Adams admits they have never replaced Mark Robinson, who was a cornerstone of their promotion-winning one-day team in 1999.

He said: "Robbo was a dream for a captain because he would come on in the middle of an innings and more often than not tie an end down for nine overs and give nothing away.

"We've struggled to find someone to do that job for us since.

"Robin Martin-Jenkins has been the pick of our seamers this season and the two spinners, Mark Davis and Mushtaq Ahmed, have done well but you need all your bowlers to hit their straps.

"Mohammad Akram is finding it hard to follow one good performance with another and James Kirtley is going through the sort of period in his career anyone who plays for a long time suffers.

"But he's a class act who works so hard at his game and things will change for him soon.

"He will get himself back on track and we will be a better side when he does."

The atmosphere at Hove could not have been more different from Friday night when a near full-house of 4,200 watched Surrey hand out a 100-run thrashing in the Twenty20 Cup.

Less than a tenth of that number turned up here, but Sussex assistant groundsman Greg Peal will remember the occasion even if no one else does.

Peal got an unexpected call-up into the Scottish team after the Saltires, who only had 11 fit men, lost opening bowler Stewart Bruce in the warm-up when he broke a finger during slip catching practice.

Peal, a former Scottish under-19 player, filled in but Adams would not have let him bat had he been needed, despite the frantic efforts by the Scottish management to register Peal who played club cricket for Arbroath before moving south a year ago.

Ward was leg before to Asim Butt in the seventh over, although there was more than a suggestion that he got some bat on the ball first, and Murray Goodwin lost his off stump to Zimbabwe-born Ryan Watson, one of six non-Scots in the Saltires line-up.

A few moments later Peal had his feet up in the dressing room while the rest of his mates on the groundstaff were struggling to get the protective sheeting on the pitch as the heavens opened.