By Joe Gadd

First day of four: Lancashire 23-1 v Sussex

THE cold reality of life after Test captaincy was swiftly brought home to Michael Atherton amid the unforgiving bleakness of Hove late yesterday afternoon. He would have expected no easy ride in his effort to reassert himself as a batsman worthy of opening the innings for England, but to be asked to start his season beneath grey clouds in an icy north wind against keen young bowlers was a challenge in its way no less demanding than facing Curtly Ambrose in the bright light and balmy warmth of the Caribbean.

He had been lbw to a wicked breakback from Ambrose in his previous innings a little over three weeks ago, the dismissal which made it certain that this time he would have no second thoughts about resigning the captaincy. Yesterday 18 balls of often uncomfortable defence against James Kirtley's brisk downhill outswingers were followed, alas for Lancashire and himself, in a duck within two balls of getting to the other end.

Even the greyest of clouds sometimes have silver linings, however, and Atherton's disappointment - he has time still to reassert his right to open the innings for his country - was also Jason Lewry's delight. It was not just the nature of his victim but the fact that he trapped him with late inswing as Atherton played from the crease which suggested that the long-striding Lewry is ready to resume a promising career.

When it was interrupted by a stress fracture of the lower back 21 months ago he had been using the new ball as well as any of the five current left-arm opening bowlers who have played for England. After his operation he could probably have bolstered Sussex in their struggles towards the end of last season but with commendable patience the county resisted the temptation and the harvest should follow.

Lewry and the three other Sussex swing and seam bowlers were certainly a handful in the 21.2 overs that were possible when play started after tea. The overnight rain had been heavy and only good covering and assiduous mopping persuaded the two distinguished west country umpires that they should brave the elements and reward a small crowd of Sussex members fortified only by several excellent new eating points. Perhaps David Shepherd and Mervyn Kitchen felt that they should play themselves in for the day/night match on Tuesday when it promises to get a trifle chilly after dark.

It was bad light rather than extreme cold which brought the players off for the second and last time at 6.15 and Nathan Wood, Barry's neat little left-handed son, could congratulate himself on surviving on a pitch which was actually perfectly dry but in conditions which allowed some movement off the pitch and through the air.

Day 2: Lewry can bring swinging times back to Sussex

By Paul Weaver at Hove

THE rehabilitation of Jason Lewry could be of significance beyond the boundaries of Sussex. Swing bowlers, like off-spinners, have been viewed as an endangered species in recent years but here is a man clearly capable of dismissing high-quality batsmen, probably more so than other left-armers who have already had a run at Test level, such as Mike Smith and Alan Mullally.

He had already done for Michael Atherton on Friday and yesterday he took the wicket of Nathan Wood with the third delivery of the morning. When he switched to the sea end, he was immediately rewarded with the scalp of Neil Fairbrother. Lancashire were 53 for three and all the wickets had gone to a young bowler playing his first match for 21 months.

Lewry, 26, suffered a stress fracture of the lower back in July 1996, when he was in line for at least an A-team tour the following winter. He pitches the ball up, swings it in to the right-hander, later and more prodigiously than the batsman would reasonably expect, and has the ability to bowl deliveries more rapid than his customary fast-medium.

He says he is fitter than at any stage in his career after working on a fitness programme designed for him by three specialists at Brighton University's Eastbourne campus. He made the 80-mile round trip from his Worthing home four times a week throughout the bleak winter months to get fit for the new season.

At lunch yesterday he had figures of 15-5-35-3. Lancashire were 118 for six before rain washed out the second session of play.

Lewry and his new-ball partner James Kirtley are the most exciting names at New Sussex this season. There is a new captain and vice-captain, a new director of cricket in the impressive David Gilbert, a newish chief executive in Tony Pigott and a new chairman on the way at the end of the season. Even the physio and pitch covering are new, and there was an atmosphere of genuine excitement and expectation in the damp Hove air yesterday.

There is no pleasing everyone, of course. One elderly member was heard grumbling that a cup of tea had gone up by 10p. This seemed a little churlish in view of the fact that the club had ploughed £100,000 into improving catering facilities. There are those, too, who think that the salary for captain Chris Adams, reportedly £200,000 over three years, is excessive for an uncapped player who was never particularly prolific in his Derbyshire days.

Again, this is a shortsighted view. Sussex have been one of the least ambitious of counties over the years. When overseas players flooded into the game in 1968 they missed out on Barry Richards, perhaps the greatest of all post-war batsmen, because Hampshire were willing to pay him £50 more for the season.

Sussex's impetus was disrupted by the rain yesterday. But not before Robin Martin-Jenkins proved that he is capable of providing valuable support for Lewry and Kirtley. He took the first of his two wickets when he had Graham Lloyd well caught in the gully, and then bowled John Crawley, who had batted most impressively for 49.

Day 4: Kirtley sweeps Sussex back to winning ways

By Christopher Martin-Jenkins at Hove

Final day of four: Sussex (75-4 dec & 260-8) bt Lancashire (266 & 68-0 dec) by 2 wkts

SUSSEX have won a championship match, their first at Hove for 22 months. The eve of the first day-night match of the season began with them saying an abrupt farewell to their commercial director after only five months in the job but ended with a nail-biting two-wicket victory with only two balls of the match left.

For Peter Moores, the new coach and the non-striker when James Kirtley hit his first ball for four to make sure that Sussex were not in the end deprived of a deserved success, this was the happiest of starts after the tribulations of last year. Seldom have any county experienced such upheaval as Sussex in the period since the win over Glamorgan in June 1996.

Lancashire had taken a chance by asking their opponents to score at only three an over and injuries to Ian Austin and Neil Fairbrother made it an unfortunate day but this was a genuine success by Sussex none the less, achieved largely through an attractive sixth-wicket partnership by two young cricketers who promise to be part of a more profitable future. Certainly if there are days like this to come the successor to Adam Tarrant as commercial director will find life altogether easier.

It was a local boy, Keith Newell, who played the cool, binding innings which did most to win the game and another Sussex-bred player, a young all-rounder with a long name, who provided the impetus in mid-innings with nine well-timed fours.

The partnership of 106 in 26 overs for the sixth wicket between Newell and Robin Martin-Jenkins looked as though it might be in vain when an ill-timed shower blew up at a point when Sussex needed only 12 more runs in 12 overs to reach their target of 260 in 88 overs.

The umpires' ruling left them only two overs to finish the job: Moores and Jason Lewry took six off the penultimate over from Peter Martin, who had bowled an excellent new-ball spell in the morning, but Lewry was bowled heaving across the line at Gary Keedy and four were still needed with three balls left when Kirtley swept his first ball to the fine-leg boundary.

Keith, the elder of the Newell brothers, is 26 and has four first-class hundreds to his credit already, including one against the 1995 West Indians, but the experience of his 22-year-old sixth-wicket partner, whose 63 off 91 balls ended with a missed sweep against Gary Keedy, had been limited hitherto to seven first-class matches for Sussex and one for British Universities. But for glandular fever two years ago it might have been more but since he returns for his final term at Durham University tomorrow it was a surprise to your correspondent that he was selected for this game.

Sussex declared their first innings at their overnight total and then fed Mike Atherton and Nathan Wood with 68 off seven overs to set up the serious business. Even before the slightly bizarre ending it was a thoroughly absorbing battle and Lancashire must have thought that they were going to win it when Wasim Khan, after a patient innings of almost three hours, became the first of Keedy's four wickets.

He had lost his opening partner, Toby Peirce, in the second over to a catch at first slip off Martin but in taking it Fairbrother cut a finger and the injury may well keep him out of tonight's AXA League game. No less worrying for Lancashire, Austin, having bowled with his usual verve, cut his knee against Richard Green's studs as they both dived in the covers to cut off one of Newell's seven fours.

Austin removed one of Sussex's two more likely matchwinners, Neil Taylor, to a catch at first slip after Adams had also been caught in the slips, brilliantly so too by Andrew Flintoff, as he pressed forward outside his off stump after hitting five fours.

Rajesh Rao, forward to an outswinger, was also caught at slip but Khan was dropped in the gully at 20 and Newell at third slip before he had scored. By the time he was out, coming down the pitch to stroke against the spin as the rain approached, Sussex were close to a win which has given them the very start their season needed.