Sussex slip to defeat to Yorkshire and drop to Division Two...
Friday 25 September 2015 16:02, UK
Hampshire also needed Sussex to lose to Yorkshire at Headingley, and the visitors succumbed to a 100-run defeat that relegates them to county cricket's basement division for the first time since 2010.
Hampshire begun the final day of their clash against Nottinghamshire on 89-0, requiring only another 111 runs to win.
Openers Michael Carberry (84no) and Jimmy Adams (70) both notched fifties in the morning session as they cruised to their total.
Two wickets in two balls from Jake Ball (2-30) - bowling both Adams and James Vince (0) - may have had Hampshire briefly rattled at 129-2 but Carberry and Will Smith (34no) saw them home.
With that news from Nottingham, Sussex knew they had to avoid defeat to the county champions Yorkshire in order to beat the drop.
Yorkshire added seven runs to their overnight score of 298-9 before Steve Magoffin (3-57) wrapped up the innings with the wicket of Tim Bresnan (55), leaving Sussex needing 309 to win.
They got off to the worst possible start when captain Ed Joyce (1) was bowled by Jack Brooks (3-39) in the fourth over.
Chris Jordan - surprisingly used as an opening batsman in this game - was the next to go, trapped lbw by Brooks for 20, before Matt Machan (16) also fell in Brooks' opening burst.
Bresnan (3-30) then reduced the visitors further to 61-5, bowling Chris Nash for 17, and picking up Luke Wright caught behind for two.
Michael Yardy (41) and Ben Brown (42) put on 82 together either side of lunch but when Yardy was out looking to hook Bresnan, the outside edge of his bat finding first slip, Sussex's hopes of survival went with the retiring all-rounder.
Adil Rashid (3-44) added the wickets of Brown and Magoffin soon after, and although Ashar Zaidi (47) showed a bit of fight, Sussex eventually succumbed to defeat and Division Two as Rashid took the final wicket of Chirs Liddle.
In the only other Division One clash to reach day four, Somerset beat Warwickshire by 17 runs at Taunton.
Chasing 225 to win, Warwickshire seemed to be going along nicely at 79-1 halfway through the morning session with Ian Westwood (17) the only man to fall, to Alfonso Thomas, from their position of 20-0 overnight.
But then part-time off-spinner Tom Cooper (5-76) bowled Varun Chopra (33), triggering a mini-collapse, as he took four wickets before lunch to reduce the home side to 104-5.
A sixth wicket fell - Rikki Clarke to Joe Leach (4-74) - straight after the break, and although England's Ian Bell (55) went through to fifty with a six off Cooper, he was bowled two balls later to gift Cooper his first five-for in first-class cricket.
Some big-hitting from Keith Barker (46 off 41 balls) and Jeetan Patel (27 off 21) had Somerset briefly worried, but they were all out for 207, Leach accounted for Barker, Patel and last man Oliver Hannon-Dalby.
