Sussex were expecting Lancashire to provide their toughest test of the season so far so they will not have been surprised by events at Liverpool yesterday.

Led by the excellent Glenn Chapple, who took four of the first five wickets to fall, the first division leaders were dismissed for 218, a total that was probably 70 or 80 runs below par.

Mal Loye then hammered 80 off just 62 balls but Mushtaq Ahmed curtailed a superb innings by the former Northamptonshire man and then, crucially, caught the dangerous Stuart Law low down off his own bowling two overs before the close. Lancashire will resume today on 133-4.

This Aigburth pitch certainly offered more bounce than the slow surfaces Sussex have got used to winning on in the first six weeks of the season and they should have made better use of it after Chris Adams won the toss.

Five players seemed to have done the hard work by getting to 25 but only Richard Montgomerie went on before he became Chapple's fourth victim after the opener had made his second successive half century.

Cricket manager Mark Robinson said: "We seemed to be one wicket down too many throughout.

"We seemed to be trying to drag it back all the time and Chapple got more out of the pitch than any of our bowlers but we are still in there fighting and getting Law at the end was a big bonus."

A positive result either way looks a certainty. Sussex have been coming here since 1907 when CB Fry got a pair and the county were bowled out for 29 and they have not won in any of their 12 subsequent visits.

In the past Liverpool has earned a reputation as being a batsman's paradise while the outfield, which Don Bradman once described as the best he had ever played on, is fast and true. But more grass was left on the pitch than is usual here, presumably to try to hold the surface together under a scorching sun or try to negate the threat of Mushtaq.

Well that was the plan anyway although it may backfire. Mushtaq struck with his third ball when he trapped Iain Sutcliffe and the sight of Gary Keedy, who is not a prodigious tweaker of the ball, managing to turn a couple sharply earlier in the day certainly interested the man with the bushy beard sitting in quiet contemplation on top of Aigburth's imposing Edwardian pavilion.

Earlier, Montgomerie stood firm for nearly three hours without ever mastering the conditions. Still, after a disappointing start to the season he will be delighted to have found some form in the last week after 98 against Middlesex at Horsham and 127 in Sunday's one-dayer at Tunbridge Wells. If he had his way, Sussex would play all their cricket on outgrounds.

Matt Prior threatened to help him build the partnership which could have made the difference.

They put on 67 in 21 overs for the fourth wicket after Chapple had made two early breakthroughs.

But, like so many of his team-mates, Prior flattered to deceive and when Chapple got one to nip back off the seam and through his defences in the sixth over after lunch Sussex went into terminal decline.

Jason Lewry took the 497th wicket of his career in the fifth over of the reply when Mark Chilton dragged one on to his middle stump but if there were any demons in the pitch Loye certainly was not aware of them.

He rode his luck on occasions but the power and placement of some of his offside drives made what had gone before him for much of the day all the more perplexing.

Wright, in particular, took a terrible hammering and Adams had to pull him out of the attack after his four overs disappeared for 38 runs.

Loye raced to his half-century off just 42 balls with 11 fours and had added seven more boundaries when he came down the pitch to Mushtaq only to inside edge onto his stumps.

Even Loye treated the leg spinner with respect and Mushtaq may still hold the key to this contest. Loye's wicket was his 45th of the season and he will fancy a few more if Sussex can set Lancashire any sort of target when they have to bat last.