Surrey fell to defeat by six wickets in their final Metro Bank One Day Cup match of the campaign at Hove.
Sussex had lost their first six games – though three of those were very close – but after a heavy loss in their last outing against Gloucestershire they made six changes, with a number of experienced players returning to the side. These included Ollie Robinson, who has been short of cricket lately. Sussex want to get him match fit for next week’s crucial championship fixture against Yorkshire.
Victory here was assured by a second wicket stand of 153 in 32 overs between the left-handers Tom Haines and Tom Alsop after Tom Clark had set the tone with a sprightly 24 from 27 balls.
Surrey, who also made a miserable start to the competition, losing their first five matches before winning the next two, didn’t post enough runs despite Ben Geddes’ 81. Yousef Majid, just 20, bowled most impressively in difficult conditions, conceding just 34 runs from his ten overs.
Debutant Seb Stuart-Reckling got Surrey’s first wicket as Tom Clark was bowled for 24 in the seventh over.
By the time he bowled Haines for a 95-ball 79 (one six, eight fours) Sussex needed just 54 for victory. And though they then lost Danial Ibrahim and Zach Lion-Cachet to a Steel googly and a Conor McKerr short ball that was skied.
Alsop took his side home with his sixth List A century. He brought the scores level by pulling Nathan Barnwell for six and finished unbeaten on 108 from 130 balls. He hit 12 fours and three sixes.
When Surrey batted they fancied a total in excess of 300 as they eased to 185 for three in the 34th over, with Ben Geddes and Josh Blake well set. But they lost their last seven wickets for 57 runs in 14 overs as Sussex spinners Archie Lenham (2-35) and Jack Carson (2-49) took a grip on the game.
They were playing on the same pitch that yielded 716 runs a week earlier, when Sussex played Leicestershire, although this surface was a little slower
Another big score still looked likely as Geddes (81 off 92 balls)) and Blake (53 off 69) added 97 from 17 overs to build a solid launch pad. Geddes, with two sixties earlier in the competition, was in particularly good form, with a six and ten fours. But he was bowled by Haines with the last ball of that 34th over and Surrey regularly lost wickets from then onwards in the hot Hove sunshine.
Their batsmen did not have an answer as leg-spinner Lenham and off-spinner Carson, bowling to a tight ring of infielders, cleverly choreographed by captain John Simpson, took control.
Blake, fresh from a run-a-ball century against Essex, was lbw to Carson in the 37th over, and when Adam Thomas was bowled by the same bowler two overs later everything rested with Ollie Sykes.
But the left-handed and clean-hitting Sykes, who had also been in prime form at Chelmsford on Friday, was yorked by another spinner, Lion-Cachet, for 20, after striking Henry Crocombe for a big six over midwicket, and Robinson wrapped up the innings by bowling Yousef and Seb Stuart-Reckling in the space of three deliveries.
