Lunch Report: Sussex beat Nottinghamshire by 73 runs

Nottinghamshire (251 & 212) v Sussex (277 & 259) - (Sussex won toss)

Sussex completed their first Championship win of the season in an hour and 35 minutes this morning as Nottinghamshire, chasing 286 to win, were bowled out for 212.

Five down overnight, still 172 short of their target, Notts always faced a tall task and the first blow for their prospects was that play began on time, a spell of morning rain having unhelpfully fizzled out. An hour or so with the covers still on would have done their cause no harm.

As it was, the odds were heavily against them, given the increasingly two-paced nature of the pitch. Graeme Swann needed the ice spray after taking a bang on the left hand from Corey Collymore, whose skilful swing bowling again posed the biggest threat to Nottinghamshire's survival.

For 50 minutes, though, the home side seemed to have a chance as Swann and Chris Read batted sensibly on the whole and took their scoring chances efficiently. Read completed an 81-ball half-century with a nice straight drive in Mushtaq Ahmed's first over of the morning.

But then Swann, not a batsman blessed with a high patience threshold, began to take liberties, getting away with an ill-advised reverse sweep against Mushy and then riskily hitting over the top for four. With the Pakistani wrist-spinner still struggling to get his line right, Swann clearly thought he had the right policy.

Read was out in the same over, popping a catch to forward short leg, but Swann paid no heed to that. Where he went wrong was in continuing the cavalier approach against Collymore, with predictable consequences: an expansive drive giving a catch that Chris Adams, at second slip, pouched at the second attempt.

Mark Ealham and Paul Franks are not mugs with the bat but once Ealham had edged Collymore to a diving Luke Wright at gully Sussex were well into the tail and the end was not long in coming.