Specsavers CC Sussex v Leics, Hove May 1-4

How could you appoint a player who averaged 4.4 in T20 as captain. The sheer incompetence of those in charge, including Luke Wright, is breathtaking. Do any of them really care?

I do understand your point but it doesn't make a bit of difference if they bat as rubbish as this. The players have let themselves down, the club down and the supporters down.

As for the fifteen no balls if there are runs scored off that ball which are not off the bat they count as no balls.

What the Sussex players need tonight.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXEBMgeenmU

For those who can't work it out, it's a rocket up their arse! This video falls into the category of don't try this at home.

How to motivate the players to perform? How about paying them only the living wage unless they perform? The players should be on a low basic salary with performance incentive built into the contract.

I don't believe simply moving the coaching staff round the answer. New blood from outside with no connections to the county and move away from "the family" was needed. Successful teams are not dependent on being friends with one another and are more interested in simply winning games of cricket. Sussex cricket needs to be shaken up from top to bottom with a brand New Committee, coaching staff and new players brought in.

To Wright and Jordan I would ask where your loyalties lie?

Everything about Sussex today was wretched.

Anyone who wants to know what is wrong, read what Chris Adams had to say in the Argus two days ago.

Promotion favourites? You're having a laugh.

Sussex were a rabble today. No self-belief whatsoever - which is no surprise given this team has recorded just one CC win in 14 games, going back to May last year.

Abject and brainless batting (Murray Goodwin what are you doing?) and a criminal lack of discipline in the  bowling (15 runs gifted in no-balls already in 38 overs? Yes, it's not easy to keep your foot behind the line running down the slope from the Cromwell Rd . But it's supposed to be harder for the away team who aren't accustomed to it! How come Leics bowled zero no-balls in 58 overs? )

The malaise at the heart of the club which was evident last season has not gone away and even the return of Luke Wright - whenever that might happen - isn't going to be enough to fix it.

Poor Ben Brown should be relieved of the duty of skippering the side and Nash installed as a stop-gap until Wright returns. Brown didn't expect such onerous responsibility, he's desperately struggling to cope and its tragic to behold. He's barely scored a run, the mix-up in Shahazad's run out was keystone cops, he dropped a regulation chance off Shahzad and his keeping was shoddy all round after tea. As for his judgement as a captain, he inserted Northants and watched them score 481-7 and he won the toss and batted today and Sussex were bowled out for 163. (Not that there was anything wrong with the pitch, but it's all adding to the pressure on the poor guy and the stress is ruining both his batting and his keeping.)

The first thing Sussex needs to do is forget all the 'family club/jobs for the old boys' bull and put a gobstopper in all the 'Robbo's rich legacy' malarkey, which is counter-productive and backwards-looking and only drags the club further downwards  instead of looking to the future (and risks turning Davis into Sussex's equivalent of David Moyes at Man Utd). Robinson left an absolute train-wreck and a new chapter is needed.

Leics were dynamic today and Sussex were the exact opposite.There have to be lessons for Sussex to learn in how chairman Paul Heywood, CEO Wasim Khan and head coach Andrew MacDonald have come in and so dramamtically transformed Leics from the biggest losers in cricket into a vibrant, confident unit brimming with self-belief.

Leics already deserve to win this match. And if Sussex can learn some lessons from observing how Leics have been transformed from hopeless losers to confident victors, then perhaps something can be salvaged from a day that was as bad as anything we saw during last season's horrific implosion.

Where've you been? That's old news!

BM, from a neutral standpoint, I think you misunderstood joe's reference to 'old news'. I took it to refer to the fact that Farbrace is Ollie's step father, not the fact that he was at Hove today! So, thankfully, you can continue to give us your 'thoughts and observations'   

It is fortunate that so very few paying customers came to see Sussex on a lovely sunny Spring Bank Holiday weekend, to play so badly and to disappoint so many, including themselves. I can easily imagine senior members of the board watching aghast as our expensive overseas player once again got to 20 or so, looking comfortable, and then played a stupid sucker shot and got out. I can imagine them, with pursed lips and indrawn breath talking about the well-paid professional who got himself out when recovery was possible, and how he had played so well for the seconds - ahh but what a gulf exists! - and recognising that once the seniors had gone that there was nothing left, no reserves of strength, only the memory of past humiliations, the legacy of a stewed and rankling complacency gone sour.

Whether Mark Davis is a good and original coach is not known. Certainly he appears to be a very warm and engaging personality, far removed from his predecessor, whose baleful presence still hovers over Hove like the shadow of a predator, endlessly circling and threatening in it its homelesness.  The repetitive insistence on "legacy", "Sussex family", and similar mawkish tropes hides the fearful nature of a management structure that cannot cope with an existence devoid of a few signal motivatory figures in its recent past. It is like the Tories at the turn of the century, shuffling the Tarot pack through Hague, Duncan-Smith, Howard, trying to fool themselves that the latest shambling zombie, lurching and swaying in the spotlight, had the authentic basilisk glare and trickle of infant's blood from the mouth of the mythical matriarch Thatcho.

Instead of celebrating the promise and present talent of Garton, of Robinson and Finch we are trying to prop ourselves up with the leftover lustre, now somewhat tarnished, of the remaining few from the fag end of an era that saw Sussex back into the First Division yet never entirely comfortable there. The Robinson legacy seems to be to avoid reinvention at all costs, to surround the players with wraiths and pale garlands instead of bolder colours and brash, fresh plantings. All the cant about service to the community, the advantageous and thrifty link-ups with pious bankers intent on purchasing indulgences through corporate social responsibility (cheaper than most forms of advertising, tax-efficient too) will not cut it with a membership already deprived of high class cricket and now condemned to less of the lower kind for at least another two seasons. Sussex CCC is a professional cricket club in a competitive environment. If it is serious about sustaining that role, success in which will underpin all other worthwhile social endeavours, then it has to make a breach with its recent past and engage with present realities with appropriate personnel.

Wright is injured!!