PETER MOORES will be burdened with many things in his first season as Sussex captain. High expectation will not be one of them.
Moores has been a voice of cheerful sanity as Sussex have indulged in the sort of masochistic excesses normally associated with fickle football club regimes.
The office politicking and blood-letting have been well chronicled elsewhere. Of more immediate concern to Sussex followers, who have followed the ins and outs and pros and cons with mounting bewilderment, is the gloomy prognosis for the team's immediate health.
Moores, however, is ignoring the obituary notices. He prefers to use words like ``exciting'' and ``positive'' in reference to the challenge ahead. ``We're certainly not going to fall into the trap of saying we're going to be a good side,'' he said, ``but people have written us off before we've even started.''
His determination that Sussex should hit the ground running when the season gets under way is reflected in a rigorous programme of warm-up matches - five one-dayers and one three-day game.
They were far from successful last year, winding up an untidy season by losing six of their last seven championship games, but the off-season balance sheet is alarmingly in the red. Remove Alan Wells and the one dependable element of a consistently inconsistent batting line-up is gone. Take away Ed Giddins, Ian Salisbury and Danny Law and three of Sussex's four most successful bowlers last year have disappeared.
Left-armer Jason Lewry, who topped the averages, is still on board, but the good news ends there. He is making a steady recovery from an operation on a stress fracture of his back, but is still likely to miss most of the season.
Sussex will be seen, not unreasonably, as the side most likely to spare Durham another season at the bottom of the championship pile. Moores and coach Desmond Haynes will have pulled off a motivational coup if the team even keep pace with the less-than-vintage 1996 crop.
At least there should be no shortage for both young and old to forge regular places. Neil Taylor could prove to be a shrewd acquisition from Kent, though the prospect of Taylor and Bill Athey in grim alliance is hardly one to quicken the pulse.
Left-hander Toby Peirce, who has re-considered his decision to abandon county cricket in favour of a City career, is one option as an opener and Sussex will need consistent runs from Neil Lenham and Keith Greenfield if they are to keep their heads above water.
There will be a huge responsibility on Vasbert Drakes to maintain the productive all-round form which was one of the few positive elements to emerge for Sussex from the last two months of last season. In the last seven championship games he took 30 wickets and, promoted up the order, put together two centuries and three fifties in those games.
The bowling, a recognisable Sussex strength in the past few seasons, will inevitably be in transition. James Kirtley has great potential as a lively and enthusiastic pace bowler, and if he can recapture the spirit of Mashonaland, when he tore the heart out of England's batting in the early stages of their Zimbabwe tour, Sussex will be well served.
There is something of a young Paul Jarvis in Kirtley's bustling approach to the wicket and Sussex will need an ailment-free season of regular wickets from the Yorkshireman.
New recruits Mark Robinson and Martin Thursfield, both with their third county, will be expected to give their new employers more consistent value for money than their previous ones received, while Robin Martin-Jenkins should be given the chance to make an impression with his accurate medium pace outside the one-day arena.
In the spin department it is a case of perm one or occasionally two from the inexperienced short-list of off- spinners Nicky Phillips and Justin Bates and leg-break bowler Amer Khan.
Opportunity is one thing which should not be lacking at Hove this summer, but Moores will demand a positive attitude. ``I don't want youngsters to come in and think they've got a ready-made excuse to fail before they've started.''