Sussex were rescued by their two most consistent batsmen of the summer just when their Championship challenge looked in danger of being derailed at Edgbaston yesterday.

After Jonathan Trott's maiden double hundred had helped Warwickshire plunder 475 off a weary-looking attack, Makhaya Ntini and Dougie Brown each took a wicket in their first overs to reduce Sussex to 4-2.

The follow-on target of 326, never mind the sort of total which would put the pressure back on their hosts, looked a long way off but Murray Goodwin and Mike Yardy pulled things around in a stand of 140 for the third wicket.

Yardy fell for 75 but Goodwin pushed on to reach his fourth hundred of the season and second against Warwickshire just before stumps.

With skipper Chris Adams he put on 87 in 16 overs in an unbroken third wicket stand as Sussex reached 244-3 when bad light ended play two overs early.

Sussex would be quite happy to leave Birmingham with a draw, a decent haul of bonus points and the chance to put their feet up before already relegated Glamorgan come to Hove for the penultimate fixture on Wednesday week.

What was evident yesterday was that the effects of a long season are starting to take their toll on their three principal bowlers.

Trott and Warwickshire's tail-enders added 145 for the last three wickets.

Sussex were up against it once Trott had seen off a second new ball only six overs old as Rana Naved and James Kirtley struggled to beat the bat and Mushtaq Ahmed, hampered by a sore knee, the strong wind blowing into his face and an unhelpful surface, was rendered impotent.

Adams was anxious to protect Luke Wright, who has only just returned after injury himself, but it was still a surprise that he did not use Robin Martin-Jenkins, arguably his best bowler on the first day, until 30 minutes before lunch.

Even then he probably wished he hadn't as Trott pulled his first ball, a rank long hop, to the boundary.

Mushtaq finally had some reward when Neil Carter swept him to long leg but only after he had helped add 67 for the eighth wicket, but Mushy's torment did not end there.

After Ntini came down the pitch to deposit him over long on for six frustration got the better of him as took his sweater and cap off umpire Barrie Leadbeater and threw them to the ground in frustration on his way back to the boundary.

When last man James Anyon came out after Ntini had padded up to the googly, Trott had just reached 153 and a new career-best.

Anyon has no pretensions as a batsmen but he kept out 29 balls while Trott went on to the offensive, hitting Mushtaq for two sixes including one down the ground which brought up his double hundred.

Anyon didn not contribute a run but the last wicket partnership was still worth 52, the seventh half-century stand of the innings, when Trott lost his middle stump to Rana's length ball, having made 210 in seven-and-a-half hours with 22 fours and three sixes from 339 balls faced.

If there was ever a game when Sussex needed to buck the trend of the summer and make a solid start this was it. Instead they were 4-2 after ten balls as Richard Montgomerie was pinned by Ntini's first ball and Hopkinson made the mistake of playing back to Brown as the pitch showed the first signs of uneven bounce.

Goodwin and Yardy were given enough loose offerings to quickly get themselves established.

Goodwin was first to 50 off just 57 balls and although Yardy's half-century took another 25 balls he played with just as much composure as they put on 157 in 40 overs.

Yardy must have been as surprised as anyone when Anyon extracted some lift to have him caught behind for a well-made 75, but Goodwin made serene progress to his 23rd century for the county off 148 balls with 13 boundaries, the majority of them when the bowlers obligingly gave him the opportunity to play his favourite cut shot.

Director of cricket Peter Moores saluted his side's positive response to those early setbacks.

He said: "Murray, Yards and then the captain played positively, took the quick singles and rotated the strike.

"We didn't die in a hole trying to save the game which we could easily have done."