Next season's starting XI

2 homegrown players is only pathetic if you only pick 2! 
I don’t think Briggs will start in April, if at all, next season in the CC, I don’t think Wiese will play in the CC either. Garton and Whittingham both had better averages than Wiese and Briggs and I’d play them both regularly. Salt also deserves a good run and Burgess could easily play as a batsman only. 

Note to Andrew, don't give Sharkey the gig. Not only will he pick a pants team, he'll slate it as well ; )

Renshaw/Joe Burns
Duckett
Wells
Finch
Wright
Salt
Brown
Archer
Robinson
Garton
Whittingham

No spinner, Jordan, and a four man attack in April init? One overseas, one player over 30, none under 20. Duckett, by the way, is an example of the sort of quality outside player we should be aiming for.

Make Wells captain, no bloody keepers - over burdened, and Wells can decide where he plays with the other two openers.

That's close season done. Took me ten minutes.

Duckett? He won't swap one second division county for another you're living in cloud cuckoo land if you think he will with Surrey looking to replace Sangakkara and Notts looking for three new batsmen following the loss of Lumb, Smith and Taylor. Van Zyl will play ahead of Finch. I suspect Jordan and Wiese will play ahead of Garton and Whittingham and that Briggs will continue to be selected by the unimaginative Sussex coaching setup.

Did I mention anything about picking a spinner?

Hopefully the new coach will bring in his own coaching team and captain and we will see several new experience faces( batters) who want to play for the new Sussex set up and that includes a new Director of Cricket.

Assuming that we are talking about the first-class, red ball game, and looking at the most recent contracts and extensions of contract the spine of the team seems to be established.

1  Wells
2
3  Van Zyl
4  Brown
5  Wright
6  Burgess
7  Jordan
8  Archer
9 
10
11

Those players scored over 5000 first class runs for Sussex last year, 65% of the total, and given that Brown and Wright both had below-par years and that Burgess was not picked often enough there is clearly potential for many more. Add Salt, or a few screws of Finch, and there is quite a tasty dish of batting even before looking for Overseas seasoning. What is needed is a competent chef and a maitre d' to ensure consistent presentation.

The bowling is paradoxically the area where promise so far outstrips performance. Only Archer bowled consistently well last year and at the end he was very tired and his figures fell away in the last few games. We will need Jordan to perform much better than he did at times last year. If Robinson has completely overcome all his injuries he will be the ideal replacement not just for Magoffin but for team balance, bowling good lengths and probing away with his medium pace in the earlier part of the innings and switching to his off spin when variety is needed or the pitch offers a bit of assistance. He would always be in my team for those attributes, and for his brave and often successful batting. That leaves the two places at the bottom of the order for encouraging competition between Sakande, Whittingham and Garton. And the use of Van Zyl as an old-fashioned change bowler, being brought on to frustrate and break up a partnership and then being taken off once he had taken a wicket, was one of the few tactical successes of last year.

That leaves in reserve, or for white-ball games only, from the current squad of contracted players Haines,Evans, Wiese,Rawlins, Mills,  Briggs and Beer. That seems about right to me with the only question whether to go for a batting Overseas star to perform in all formats or to resume the search for a high class quality spinner, a Mushtaq or a Panesar for the four-day game. Essex struck gold last year with Harmer but canny spinners have so many offers from the T20 leagues they are less and less likely to commit to 6 months of battling against the pitches.