A wicket for Chris Nash and some hostile bowling from Kevin Innes were about the only crumbs of comfort for Sussex in their Championship match against Warwickshire at Edgbaston.

If watching Nick Knight bat all day to make an unbeaten 198 out of 368-7 after he was dropped on 37 was not bad enough, Robin Martin-Jenkins joined a worryingly long Sussex injury list when he suffered a side strain in only his third over.

He is unlikely to bowl again in the match and there must be a concern that he could have suffered a repeat of the intercostal muscle injury which kept him out for three months last season.

Martin-Jenkins was not the only casualty on a day when 12th man Mark Robinson spent so much time trotting on and off you could almost detect his footprints in front of the pavilion gate.

Innes needed treatment for the groin strain which he has been playing with for the last three weeks while Tony Cottey went off for running repairs to his right hand after intercepting a full-blooded drive from Knight at cover.

Both he and Martin-Jenkins spent the rest of the day fielding on the boundary, wisely removed from the firing line.

All this after Richard Montgomerie, leading the side for the second time in the absence of Chris Adams and James Kirtley, had inserted Warwickshire after winning a toss he would have preferred to have lost.

No one really knew how a well-grassed pitch would play beforehand. Groundsman Steve Rouse thought it would be slow and take spin so Warwickshire's decision to leave out Neil Smith was baffling.

The Sussex attack fancied their chances of making inroads on an overcast morning but in the event there was little swing and the surface became progressively easy paced, although Innes had batsmen hopping around when he got the ball to lift disconcertingly off a good length.

He made a breakthrough in his first over after Sussex had wasted the new ball by bowling too full and allowing Knight and Michael Powell to put on 95 in 22 overs.

It should have been two wickets with Knight put down by a diving Prior after he had thrown the kitchen sink to a ball well outside off stump. Prior got both gloves on what would have been a comfortable catch for first slip but instead it slid down to third man.

Innes was celebrating a couple of balls later after Powell played back to a lifter and was caught behind having scored 11 boundaries in his 57 and Sussex claimed another wicket before lunch when Mark Wagh had a dart at Jason Lewry and was taken at square leg.

Occasionally Innes was unplayable, but whenever he or any of his team-mates overpitched Knight picked him off effortlessly.

In the 43rd over, however, Ian Bell gloved another lifter having been caught behind off a no ball in his previous over and Innes had an overdue second success.

Nash's chance came shortly afterwards. The 19-year-old from Horsham has played several games for Loughborough UCCE this season, but a couple of weeks ago he was complaining to coach Robinson about a lack of second team opportunities.

He played his first game against Surrey and took four wickets last week and yesterday found himself bowling to a man with 17 Tests and getting on for 100 one-day internationals under his belt.

He did not do badly. Coming in off four paces, Nash was not afraid to give the ball some air to try and tempt batsmen into indiscretions.

His big moment came when Dominic Ostler got a thin edge trying to force through the off side off the back foot.

Nash's first eight overs cost just 25 and he should have claimed a second wicket when Troughton, on 26, drove straight to cover where Billy Taylor dived forward but could not hold on.

Warwickshire's fifth wicket pair put on 104 in 28 overs and Troughton, who came into the game with an average of 57.50, looked capable of improving it before he top-edged a pull off Lewry and Cottey ran in from the square leg boundary to hold a steepling catch.

Taylor's perseverence was rewarded when he bowled Shaun Pollock in the second over with the new ball and Lewry had Dougie Brown taken at short leg but by then Knight was entrenched.

Three successive fours off Lewry took him to his third Championship century in ten innings this season in the 50th over and he was returning today two short of his second double of the summer, having faced 323 balls and hit 23 fours.

He probably slept soundly last night but it is a fair bet that Prior, who also dropped Keith Piper off the last ball of the day, did not.