New faces in squad for visit of Northants

After a disappointing defeat against Durham earlier this week, Sussex are back in Specsavers County Championship action against Northamptonshire at The 1st Central County Ground on Sunday.

Jason Gillespie has named a 14-man squad for the match. Harry Finch and Tom Haines are replaced by trialist Aneesh Kapil and the on-loan Varun Chopra, while Phil Salt returns following his hand injury.

Danny Briggs (ankle), George Garton (side), Mir Hamza (back) and Will Sheffield (knee) all remain unavailable through injury. Briggs is expected to be out for a number of weeks. Garton continues his rehabilitation after suffering a set-back this week. It is hoped Hamza will be fit for the Championship fixture against Lancashire. Sheffield will undergo surgery next month before beginning approximately nine months of rehabilitation.

Despite the Durham loss, Sussex remain in the third and final promotion berth in division two with 96 points. They are 16 points clear of Gloucestershire in fourth and 17 points behind Lancashire in second having played a game more than either side.

Sussex have the highest number of bowling bonus points (22) and the second highest number of batting bonus points (22) in the division.

In Ben Brown (659) and Stiaan van Zyl (608), Sussex have the second and fourth highest run scorers in division two. Ollie Robinson’s 30 wickets put him third among the bowlers.

Speaking on Friday, Sussex head coach Jason Gillespie said: “We’re looking forward to welcoming Northants to Hove. They have some very good players and we know the strength of their squad having played them recently.

“It’s great to have Phil back into the squad. He’ll have another opportunity to bat on Saturday against our bowlers in training and we’ll make a decision on whether he is fit to play after that.

“Anish Kapil has trialled with us for a while now and has been excellent. He’s scored runs consistently in the seconds and is being rewarded for those performances with this call up to the squad.

“A warm welcome also to Varun Chopra who joins us on loan.

“Finchy and Tommy Haines drop out of the squad. Harry hasn’t quite scored the runs he or we would like and has a chance now to put some performances in for the seconds to demand reselection. It’s a similar situation for Tom – score a heap of runs for the second team and push hard for to win his place back.”

Sussex Squad

Ben Brown (c/wk), Will Beer, Varun Chopra, Laurie Evans, Chris Jordan, Aneesh Kapil, Delray Rawlins, Ollie Robinson, Abi Sakande, Phil Salt, Aaron Thomason, Stiaan van Zyl, Luke Wells, David Wiese

Opposition

Northamptonshire sit at the foot of the division two, with five draws – including against Sussex last month - and two defeats from their seven outings to date. As such, they are the only side without a win.

Ricardo Vasconcelos and Adam Rossington have been the mainstays of Northants’ batting with 538 and 393 runs respectively. David Ripley’s men have found it difficult to bowl sides out and that is reflected in the fact that 19 wickets make Ben Sanderson Northants’ leading wicket-taker. Nathan Buck has taken 18, but no other bowler has more than nine. With that in mind, the club have signed Essex’s Matt Coles on loan to boost their seam armoury.

Match Details

Gates open at 9.30am and play is scheduled to start at 11am on all four days of the match. E-tickets are available to buy online for each day’s play up until gates open on the day in question.

Thereafter, paper tickets will  be able to purchase in person from the Eaton Road entrance of The 1st Central County Ground.

Supporters who are unable to make it to The 1st Central County Ground will be able to watch every ball live accompanied by ball-by-ball commentary from BBC Sussex via the FREE live stream on the Sussex Cricket Match Day Centre.

The Match Day Centre also includes a live scorecard, live statistics and text commentary via the @SussexCCC twitter account.