Hangover for Sussex

A couple of days earlier the champagne had been flowing at Hove, but yesterday it was a case of flat beer as the county's hopes of squeezing into the third promotion place in the Norwich Union League second division were ended by a ruthless Hampshire outfit who cruised to a seven wicket win with a whopping 22.1 overs to spare.

It was all over by 4.25pm, leaving Hampshire a long wait before discovering whether their efforts had been good enough to earn them a place in Division One.

But Hants missed out on promotion with Worcerstershire overcoming Essex.

Not content with bowling out Sussex for just 142 with seven of their 45 overs unused, they cantered to their target with embarassing ease thanks to an outstanding display of good old-fashioned pinch-hitting by James Hamblin.

The all-rounder had earlier taken the last three wickets to fall to finish with 3-23 before unleashing a ferocious assault on the Sussex bowlers. He scored 60 off just 42 balls and although Hampshire lost three wickets in successive overs the outcome was never in doubt.

It was all a big let down for a decent-sized crowd enjoying the sunshine on the last day of the season.

Chris Adams won the toss and figured that the greenest looking pitch at Hove this summer would not get any easier to bat on.

He was proved wrong and while there was always something in the wicket to interest the seamers too many Sussex batsmen got out to poor shots.

Richard Montgomerie and Tim Ambrose started well enough, putting on 20 without too much alarm before Montgomerie got under an attempted pull off Dimitri Mascerenhas and holed out to deep square leg. Consolation for him was the knowledge that he finished as the division's leading scorer with 673 runs.

It became a steady procession of top order wickets after that. Tim Ambrose was taken at the wicket trying to cut a delivery from Alan Mullally that was probably too close to him for the shot, Murray Goodwin was bowled by one from Mascerenhas which nipped off the seam and Adams was well caught at slip off Chris Tremlett by Neil Johnson diving to his right at slip.

With their Sussex futures still undecided, Will House and Jamie Carpenter could have done their career prospects some good by playing long innings, but both made just single-figure contributions. House got a leading edge trying to work Shaun Udal through square and Carpenter was bowled by the left-arm spinner swishing across the line.

When Mark Davis played on to Mullally, Sussex were 63-7 and in danger of recording one of their lowest totals in the competition's history.

That ignimony was avoided thanks to a rousing eighth wicket stand of 42 between Billy Taylor, a son of Hampshire of course, and Robin Martin-Jenkins. Both climbed into anything loose before Hamblin made his first important contribution of the day.

In the 35th over Martin-Jenkins pulled the medium-pacer straight to deep mid-wicket after making 38, his highest one-day score of the season, and two balls later Taylor edged him low to slip after making 19, also a season's best.

The Hampshire players stood to applaud Mark Robinson as he made his way to the crease for possibly the last time and cricket's best No. II even got off the mark first ball. But Hamblin had his third wicket when Robinson thrust his pad forward but in line with the stumps.

Sussex needed to take ten wickets to win so it was something of a surprise that James Kirtley, who has taken more than 100 wickets in all cricket this season, didn't take the new ball.

By the time he was brought on for the ninth over Hamblin was into his stride and smashed three fours and a big six over mid-wicket in Kirtley's first over. His 50 came up in 33 minutes.

Robinson checked the scoring rate and eventually made a breakthrough in the 13th over when Johnson played on after the first-wicket pair had put on 103. In successive overs Hamblin drilled Mark Davis to mid off after smashing 14 fours and that six and Robinson had Lawrence Prittipaul leg before half-forward as Hampshire briefly wobbled.

Robinson tried his heart out until the very end. After Francis had hit the winning runs Robinson departed to his second standing ovation of the weekend and, in a nice gesture, even returned the compliment as he trooped off the County Ground for possibly the last time.

Sussex's prolific openers Richard Montgomerie and Murray Goodwin have been named joint-winners of the club's player of the season award after both scored over 2,000 runs.

Michael Yardy was named most improved player and Jason Lewry took the honours for the best individual performance after his 13-84 match haul, which included a hat-trick, in the win over Hampshire.

Other awards: First team fielder: Chris Adams. Team man: James Kirtley. Second team player of the year: Tim Ambrose; Second team fielder: Carl Hopkinson.