Haines, Hughes steer Sussex to safety as Surrey draw another blank

Champions Surrey are still looking for the first win of the season in the Rothesay County Championship after they drew with Sussex at Hove.

Surrey's hopes of putting pressure on their hosts on the final day evaporated when they lost their last seven wickets for 100 runs in the morning session.

They still took a first-innings lead of 55 after being dismissed for 490, but Tom Haines followed his first-innings 174 with an unbeaten 69 (nine fours) and Dan Hughes contributed 49 to an unbroken first-wicket stand of 132. Haines took his aggregate for the season to 449 and is averaging 89.80.

Surrey needed early wickets to put pressure back on Sussex but the openers wiped out the arrears in the 17th over, by which time Surrey had to employ spin at both ends because of the poor light with skipper Rory Burns bowling three overs and Dan Worrall and Dom Sibley sending down some exploratory legbreaks.

Bad light stopped play at 3.25pm and there was never any chance that the players would return. In the end the loss of 83 overs during the first three days to bad weather and a pitch which hardly deteriorated ended up frustrating both teams. Surrey took 15 points and Sussex 14 and both sides remain unbeaten after three matches.

Surrey began the day on 390 for 3 with ambitions to go past Sussex's 435 and make it an awkward second innings for their hosts.

But they lost momentum straight away. Ollie Robinson's third ball of the day stopped in the pitch and Dan Lawrence gave midwicket an easy catch without adding to his 107, which came off 111 balls with ten fours and a six.

Robinson settled into a probing spell of 11-2-42-1 and Jayden Seales gave good support on a pitch that offered more seam movement than had been evident in the previous two days under low cloud cover and with the floodlights in use. And after conceding 162 runs during the afternoon session on the third day and incurring the wrath of coach Paul Farbrace, Sussex were much more disciplined in the field.

Seales bowled at decent pace from the Sea End and was rewarded with wickets in successive overs. Ben Foakes fenced at a ball of good length for 60 then Ryan Patel fatally chased a widish one.

Left-arm spinner James Coles finished things off with the last four wickets. Jordan Clark heaved across the line before the left-arm spinner picked up the final three wickets in six balls.

Atkinson inside-edged a full toss on to his off stump, Matthew Fisher was bowled trying to guide his second delivery down to third man and Coles completed his maiden five-for when he fired one down the leg side and Ollie Sykes got a thin edge to John Simpson, who took his fourth catch of the innings to ensure Sussex took maximum bowling points, an unlikely outcome at the start of the day.