28th June - 1st July, away to Warwickshire

Not so much a match report as an obituary from the PA reporter at the ground:

"Long, slow and agonising was the descent of the LV=County Championship match between Warwickshire and Sussex into merciful oblivion at sun-baked Edgbaston.
The dead slow pitch was the only winner as the home side, replying to Sussex's 601 for six declared, batted throughout the final day to finish on 612 for six.
When these teams met at Hove in May, bowlers made hay on a spiteful surface which yielded 761 runs for 39 wickets.
This time the bowlers did all the suffering as, on a track which offered nothing at all to seamers and spinners alike, 1,213 runs were scored for 12 wickets.
The stalemate certainly did nothing to enhance Warwickshire's title aspirations as they lost further ground on Yorkshire who emphatically beat Durham.
In the absence of any sense of purpose to the match as a whole, it was left to individuals and statisticians to garner what they could from it on the final day.
Laurie Evans (an unbeaten 213 from 396 balls with 24 fours, his maiden double-century) and Tim Ambrose (153 from 256 balls, 18 fours) duly filled their boots with a sixth-wicket stand of 327. It was the highest ever sixth-wicket partnership for the Bears and the fourth-highest by any team in the county championship.
Meanwhile, it is only the second time in a match at Edgbaston that both teams passed 500 in their first innings, the only previous occasion being the famous Brian Lara match against Durham in 1994, and the first time both passed 600.
Having started the final day on 367 for five, Warwickshire advanced to 443 for five at lunch and then plodded onward in front of a tiny crowd, an estimated 85 per cent of whom slept soundly throughout the afternoon session as the sun blazed down."

Delighted for the Sussex senior batsmen who got their mojo back but we needed the points as 9 still keeps us in a
relegation scrap if either Worcestershire or Notts win their outstanding games.

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/county-championship-division-one/table

Dougie Brown, the Warwickshire director of cricket, revealed afterwards that there had been another strip ready for this match but, after an injury to Barker left them a seamer short, they plumped for a pitch used twice before in Twenty20 matches and picked three spinners.

"It was my call," he said. "The one thing we have not been able to do regularly here is get pitches that spin and we thought this one would turn so we could get our spinners into the game but it never happened that way. The pitch just got slower and slower. To be fair, our groundsman Gary Barwell warned us that a different pitch might be better to play on. It was our decision and sometimes you just have to say you got it wrong."

Intersting. So the home coach can overrule the grondsman on which strip is used. Can  Robinson overrule Andy McKay like that at Hove?

Riveting. Will the second innings start tomorrow? I must admit, I prefer a Mckay pitch to a Barwell, or Brown, pitch that's for sure. Somewhere in between is the holy grail though and it shouldn't be difficult to find for a grass expert - jammin!

I don't agree with your dead match attitude or rest plan BM, most of the T20 bowlers didn't play anyway and standing about in a field won't be too taxing for the likes of Wright and Machan. Remember, a T20 game is four overs for a bowler and if you bat for an hour you've done pretty well. Also remember that the Middle played at the same time as us so it's fair, if badly scheduled. It's definitely badly scheduled, six days on the bounce across two different comps is ridiculous regardless of how taxing the first four might be.

What I was angling at was if it was Mark Robinson who chose the strips that have caused such consternation at Hove?

He has an interesting take on dealing with intrusive meadow grasses, referred to as poa, in his thread here on the pitchcare site www.pitchcare.com/message/message/99519