Sussex face battle against the odds

If they are to end 25 years of misery in Birmingham the champions are going to have to do it the hard way.

Chris Adams and coach Mark Robinson could hardly have believed their eyes yesterday when a pitch as green as the rest of the Edgbaston outfield was unveiled.

To be fair, it played easier than it looked but has clearly been prepared to negate the threat of Mushtaq Ahmed.

The leg-spinner still took three wickets but, with runs on the board, Warwickshire are in a familiar position of strength after the first day.

Mushy has never been on the winning side in seven visits to Edgbaston with Somerset and Sussex but he has still taken two five-fors on two of his previous games here including 5-39 last season.

Coach Mark Robinson said: "The pitch they played Lancashire on last week was white. They are obviously paranoid about Mushy.

"It is similar to the wicket we played on last season here. You can easily lose four wickets to the new ball because the movement is extravagent on occasion but you can put your hands through the ball as a batsman and it should get better to bat on."

Sussex were staring down the barrel when Warwickshire overcame the early loss of Darren Maddy to move to 174-1.

Their seamers were guilty of not making Ian Westwood or Jonathan Trott play often enough, although both batsmen could have been out cheaply on another day when loose shots dropped just short of fielders.

Both were eyeing up centuries when Mushtaq altered the complexion of the day with two wickets in three balls.

The first owed much to former Warwickshire junior Richard Montgomerie or, more specifically, his backside.

When Mushtaq dropped short Trott's eyes lit up but his full-blooded pull-drive cannoned into short leg's rump and rebounded to Carl Hopkinson at silly point.

Then Westwood was leg-before propping forward to a googly and suddenly it did not seem such a long afternoon for Sussex after all. The second wicket pair had put on 161 in 57 overs.

Mushtaq broke through again in the first over of a new spell after tea when Luke Parker joined a long list of batsmen who made the fatal mistake of playing back to his wrong un.

The county's talisman has bowled better but Parker's dismissal was proof that, even when he is not at his best, he still has a hypnotic hold on opposition batsmen.

The conditions seemed ideal for someone like Jason Lewry, but the left-armer did not even make the trip to the Midlands. He picked up a slight thigh strain against Kent last week and was not risked while Luke Wright is out with a bruised rib.

And when Robin Martin-Jenkins, who bowled 12 overs before lunch, did not appear after the interval because of a migraine, Adams' options were even more limited.

James Kirtley was consistent without threatening to run through Warwickshire while left-armer Chris Liddle did a steady job on his Championship debut and his second spell asked plenty of questions of Westwood and Trott with late movement away from the bat, even when they were well set.

Adams is fortunate that Rana Naved is happy to do more than his fair share of work.

Maddy was his first victim although Warwickshire's new captain rather got himself out with a flat-footed drive to cover.

Rana's best work was done during a ten-over spell with the new ball when he picked up two more wickets, both to full-length deliveries.

Jim Troughton, a Sussex target not so long ago, played across a straight one and Alex Loudon lost his off stump after adding 52 with Tim Ambrose.

It could have been even better had Adams not dropped what was, by his standards, a fairly routine chance at second slip when Ambrose fenced outside his off stump in Rana's next over.

But it went to ground and Ambrose, who not surprisingly looked more assured against Mushtaq than any of his colleagues, has the opportunity to tilt the balance firmly in Warwickshire's direction today after reaching his half-century just before the close.

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