Hampshire chairman Rod Bransgrove is still fuming over the ECB's decision not to award the Rose Bowl coveted Test match status.

He claims it was made on personal rather than cricketing decisions.

Hampshire have been playing there for six seasons now and the latest addition to the excellent facilities are state-of-the-art floodlights costing the thick end of half a million pounds. The Rose Bowl has never looked better.

On the pitch, though, it is a different story.

One wag joked yesterday that, among the new facilities, Hampshire should have built accomodation for the ECB's pitch inspectors.

Peter Walker was on duty yesterday and he will be back again today for another poke and prod.

When the sides met last July, Hampshire only just escaped a points deduction after lengthy post-match deliberations involving both captains and the umpires. And that was after both teams scored more than 300 in their first innings.

Sussex are fuming about a pitch which started damp in an effort to hold it together for as long as possible and offered lavish seam movement all day.

Add in variable bounce, which accounted for Mike Yardy, and you get some idea just how hard it was for the batsmen. It is not likely to get any easier either.

You could argue that Sussex should have bowled first. But the average score for the first innings at the Rose Bowl is 100 runs more than the second.

Chris Adams must have reasoned that it was worth getting runs on the board first.

They managed 212 with the unexpected bonus of a batting point thanks to a last-wicket stand of 33 between Rana Naved, who made a run-a-ball 38, and Jason Lewry.

Rana then struck with the first ball of the reply when he had Michael Brown caught behind.

It might have got even better for Sussex but Adams dropped a sharp chance in the slips off Lewry when the former England man had made six. There was plenty of playing and missing before Hampshire reached 34-1 in reply off 17 overs at stumps.

Only Adams and opener Carl Hopkinson, who manned the barricades for more than three-and-a-half hours to make 45, had offered any hint of permanence earlier in the day and they would have been nursing sore knuckles last night after both were rapped on the glove by balls which popped up alarmingly off a good length.

The jury is still out on whether Hopkinson can cement his place at the top of the order but he did a great job for his side yesterday.

It took him 65 minutes and 37 deliveries to get off the mark as Chris Tremlett and James Bruce put enough balls in the right areas and waited for conditions to do the rest.

While Hopkinson stood firm, three team-mates came and went inside 22 overs. Richard Montgomerie played watchfully until fatally sparring at a ball outside off stump.

To Murray Goodwin and Yardy it must have seemed like a different game entirely to the one they played on Saturday when they batted all day against Warwickshire and scored 385 runs.

Their combined aggregate yesterday was 373 fewer and all 12 were scored by Yardy.

One ball from Sean Ervine pitched on the left-hander's off stump and was taken by sprawling Nic Pothas in front of first slip but his dismissal, a leg-side strangle off Sean Ervine, was a bit soft.

Goodwin did not know whether to twist or stick when Ervine pitched one well outside off stump later in his spell and ended up spooning a catch to third slip to leave Sussex tottering on 40-3.

Adams and Hopkinson were together for 34 overs but at no time was batting even comfortable.

There were long periods, particularly after lunch, when they had to be content with watchful defence but Adams drove stylishly when the bowlers over-pitched to collect the majority of his seven fours while Hopkinson showed a liking for anything short with some meaty leg-side thumps.

Hopkinson faced 167 balls for his 45 (eight fours) and was furious to be caught at slip off Dominic Thornely's medium pace.

But after 218 minutes of selfdenial he was entitled to throw the bat at a ball which was pitched up.

Robin Martin-Jenkins, Luke Wright and Andrew Hodd all perished cheaply as Aussie all-rounder Thornely claimed career-best figures while three hours of hard graft by Adams ended disappointingly when he pushed forward to Shaun Udal and the ball ricocheted off up his pads, allowing Pothas to run round in front of the stumps to snaffle an easy catch.

It was the 40th half-century of his Sussex career and none will have been harder earned.

When a ball which is 70 overs old is going sideways batting is a little more than a lottery.

When Mushtaq brought the slip cordon into play again Sussex were still 21 runs short of a batting point.

But Rana played with his customary aggression and Lewry hung around long enough to help him put on 33 for the last wicket before Rana was caught on the mid-wicket boundary having just deposited Shaun Udal over long on for six earlier in the over.