Sussex were punished by another of their old boys as they suffered a convincing defeat to Surrey in the National League yesterday.

Ed Giddins, such a favourite in his days at Hove, took career best limited overs of 5-20 in a low-scoring Division Two clash at The Oval.

Just like Michael Di Venuto in Sussex's opening day defeat at Derby, Giddins played the decisive role against his old county, although the under-strength visitors regained a little pride with some decent bowling and superb fielding.

Giddins delivered his nine overs straight off from the Pavilion End and extracted bounce and movement which was too much for the batsmen to handle.

The visitors' two most prized wickets were claimed within three balls in Giddins' second over as stand-in skipper Richard Montgomerie edged a delivery of generous bounce to the keeper and Murray Goodwin was trapped right in front.

Giddins later added three wickets for four runs in the space of seven balls, though the first of those victims, Will House, was adamant he had been picked up on the half- volley by Ian Salisbury just behind cover point and took some persuading to leave the middle.

All this on the same strip, with the same short boundary, on which Surrey and Glamorgan had shared 900 runs in a C & G Trophy tie four days earlier.

Robin Martin-Jenkins salvaged the innings with a 76-ball half-century, adding 54 in ten overs with Kevin Innes to haul Sussex from a catastrophic 53-6. The tempo slowed considerably once Innes had departed as Sussex looked to take up as many overs as possible.

Billy Taylor's sharp return catch got rid of Surrey dangerman Ali Brown, who this time managed just two boundaries.

But it was Mark Davis and Mark Robinson who gave their county a flicker of hope. Davis completely outwitted Ian Ward and was the pick of the attack. Robinson, brought back due to James Kirtley's England recall, beat the bat on several occasions in his first spell, as well as claiming the wicket of Mark Ramprakash to a superb running catch by Montgomerie.

It was Robinson, however, who suffered most as Nadeem Shahid and Adam Hollioake, having both ridden their luck at times, stepped up the scoring rate dramatically in the closing stages.

Together they blasted 65 off ten overs, with Hollioake collecting a 34-ball 50, to finish the job Giddins had started so impressively.