David Wiese blasts century on day one against Cardiff students

David Wiese's stunning 80-ball century put Sussex in a dominant position against Cardiff MCCU on the first day of their opening first-class match of the season. 

Just like against Kent earlier in the week, four Sussex batsmen made fifty, with Tom Haines and Michael Burgess unlucky not to score centuries, on a sunny but breezy Sunday at The 1st Central County Ground. 

After Cardiff won the toss and opted to bowl, young duo Phil Salt and Haines opened the batting for Ben Brown's side, but Salt's stay at the crease was short-lived when he received an excellent ball from Daniel Douthwaite to be bowled for one in the first over. 

Haines was then joined in the middle by Luke Wells, and the pair began to build the side their first formidable partnership of the day. Both looked comfortable at the crease, with Haines the first to reach his half-century. 

His assured knock came off 65 balls and included 10 fours, before Wells reached his fifty with the first ball after lunch - a languid drive through extra cover. 

Wells was eventually dismissed for 66 when he was caught in the deep, and Stiaan van Zyl was dismissed soon after when Douthwaite claimed his second wicket of the day by bowling the South African for eight with a delivery that seamed in some distance. 

Despite wickets falling around him, Haines continued to bat with composure as five more fours helped him reach 93. However, he was then trapped LBW by former England Under-19 left-arm spinner, Prem Sisodiya and fell seven runs short of a deserved ton. 

Sussex's tricky spell after lunch continued when Brown went for ten after being caught by Joseph Ludlow off the bowling of Gibbs. Harry Finch was then dismissed soon after, going for 15 with Sisodiya claiming his third wicket of the day and leaving Sussex 223-6. 

Burgess and Wiese decided that taking a positive approach against the student  was the best way to wrest the initiative back into Sussex's hands, and so it proved. 

Burgess was particularly strong against the student spinners, square of the wicket, cutting and driving early in his innings before peppering the leg-side boundary as he passed fifty from 63 balls. 

Wiese was even more belligerent, punishing a tiring attack who made the mistake of over-pitching to a man that loves to get underneath the ball. He raced to an eleventh first-class century in just 80 balls, including eleven fours and three sixes that sailed towards the English Channel as Sussex's South African import laid into the finger spin of Sidodiya and Steven Reingold.

The pair's stand reached 200 in the 81st over and when it went past 218 they had put on the fifth-highest seventh-wicket partnership in Sussex's first-class history.

Burgess was finally dismissed five short of a third first-class century when Jack Evans pinned him in front, and five overs later Wiese followed suit. He had added a further six boundaries when another attempt at clearing the boundary at the Sea End saw him caught off Matt Foster for 139 from 121 balls. 

Ollie Robinson's was the ninth wicket to fall when he was bowled for five, leaving Chris Jordan (15*) - who had reached 3,000 first-class runs with the first run of his innings - and Abi Sakande (2*) to see Sussex through to the close. 

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