Richard Montgomerie made a career-best but missed out on a double hundred as Sussex piled on the misery for Hampshire on the second day of the Championship match at Hove today.

Montgomerie passed his previous best of 192, made for his former county Northammptonshire against Kent in 1995, when he collected two runs off Neil Johnson.

On 196 he got a thin edge to a delivery from James Tomlinson and was caught behind, having faced 354 balls and hit 32 fours.

Hampshire bowled better with the second new ball this morning, their other success coming when Tim Ambrose, who had looked untroubled in making 32 in a fourth wicket stand of 76, cut straight to point to give Dimi Mascerenhas his second wicket of the innings.

Only 11 balls were possible at the start before a heavy shower drove the players off for 25 minutes, cutting eight overs off the day's allocation.

Sussex need as much time as possible to try and bowl Hampshire out twice so the emphasis today was on positive batting and quick runs.

Robin Martin-Jenkins twice pulled Neil Johnson to the mid-wicket boundary in the same over and Matt Prior drove confidentally through the covers to get off the mark with successive fours off Tomlinson.