Sussex v Derbyshire day 1

Sussex 400-7 (Brown 116, Wiese 89 not, Finch 82, Palladino 2-45)

v Derbyshire

After taking three wickets in the first hour, Derbyshire's attack struggled for the rest of the day at Hove.

Truth be told, it was a weird old day. One that started with Harvey Hosein ruled out before the start of play, after dislocating a finger in the warm ups. It saw him replaced by Wayne Madsen, temporarily, behind the stumps. Daryn Smit made the dash from Derbyshire to the south coast and got there in time for the tea interval, by which time Wayne had held two catches and had a little work to do with some wayward stuff.

There was punishment for both Hardus Viljoen and Lockie Ferguson, the main control coming, as usual, from Tony Palladino, whose 2-45 was the most economical bowling of the day.

Later on Ravi Rampaul had to leave the field and was taken to hospital with breathing difficulties, while Sean Ervine only bowled five overs, suggesting he wasn't fully fit for bowling.
It was one of those days and again one on which the medium pace of Alex Hughes wasn't tried. While this format isn't his forte, I'd have thought him worth a few overs, even just to change the pace a little.

Perhaps Billy Godleman has been doing a night class in soothsaying, as the announced line-up, with five seamers, appeared to be a little top heavy with right arm over. The two men out of the attack meant he had to turn to Matt Critchley for eighteen overs, which was more than might have been expected when we opted to bowl under cloud cover.

After that it was pretty routine for the home side. Brown, Wiese and Finch batted very well for them and it will be our turn tomorrow, against a keen seam attack in which Archer, Jordan, Robinson and Wiese will test them.

Late in the day Wayne Madsen bowled a couple of overs, suggesting, after two sessions behind the stumps, that he will sleep well tonight. Assuming Harvey Hosein recovers to keep wicket before the season end, it will mean that we have used four wicket keepers in the course of a summer. At least it shows the merit, at last, of having so many on the staff...

It must be some kind of record, from a county where Harry Elliott, George Dawkes and Bob Taylor broadly covered 64 years between them, the Second World War notwithstanding, between 1920 and 1984.

More from me tomorrow, if time permits after work.