Sussex are ready to start talks with record-breaker Jason Lewry about a new contract.

The 30-year-old left-armer took the second hat-trick of his county career and finished with a career-best match analysis of 13-79 as Sussex hammered Hampshire by an innings and 113 runs at Hove on Saturday.

The county initially decided against offering him an extension to his current deal which runs out at the end of the season.

And when they had a change of heart during the winter Lewry rejected the offer of a further year which would have tied him to the club until the end of 2002.

Now Sussex are ready to negotiate with him again after he took his aggregate of wickets for the season to 40 by following up his first innings 6-37 with 7-42 as Hampshire were bowled out for 108 in their second innings.

Chief executive Dave Gilbert said: "We initially decided not to offer Jason an extension. It wasn't a threat, we were just sending out a message that we felt there were parts of his game which were frustrating us.

"Jason took umbrage and rightly so. He pointed out his record for the county which is very good and I think he was quite insulted. We then offered him an extra year, but Jason, to his credit had second thoughts and decided to see what happened this season."

Gilbert is adamant that the county want to see Worthing-based Lewry see out his career with Sussex for whom he made his debut in 1994.

"The message from us is that Jason is incredibly important in the short-medium term of the club," added Gilbert.

"He's got three or four good years ahead of him at least and I'd be amazed if he didn't want to see them out with Sussex.

"I'm going to have talks with (coach) Peter Moores in the next day or two with a view to sitting down as soon as we can with Jason. We saw on Saturday that he can be a match-winner. We want to keep players like that."

Sussex's fourth win in five games lifted them into second place in the Division Two table behind Middlesex who beat Nottinghamshire to stay top.