Sussex suffer first Championship defeat despite battling knocks from Luke Wright & Ben Brown

Sussex battled hard on another thrilling day at Canterbury but more inspired bowling from New Zealand overseas player Matt Henry saw Kent win this Specsavers County Championship encounter late on the third evening.

Having bowled Kent out for 235 on the stroke of lunch, Sussex required 270 to win in the fourth innings but despite a belligerent 47 from Luke Wright and a characteristically gutsy innings from the captain Ben Brown, the visitors fell 59 runs short.

Sussex got the day off to an ideal start as Ishant Sharma’s eleventh ball of the day saw Zak Crawley caught by David Wiese.

Two overs later, Phil Salt pulled off a blinding catch in the gully to get rid of Adam Rouse and give Ishant his fourth wicket of the innings.

When Ollie Robinson had Adam Rouse caught behind 17 balls later, Kent were 180 ahead with three wickets remaining and Sussex would have been eyeing up a chase of around 200.

A 53-ball 55 from Henry, however, swung the momentum back in Kent’s favour as he and Harry Podmore put on 74 for the eight wicket. It was a partnership that would prove crucial come the final reckoning.

Once Henry was finally dismissed - caught at first slip by Michael Burgess off Robinson – Sussex’s seamers polished off the Kent tail reasonably quickly.

Robinson joined Ishant on four wickets when Grant Stewart was bowled for 11 before Ivan Thomas has his off stump knocked out of the ground by Wiese, the South African’s second wicket of the innings.

Sussex lost two wickets early in the chase as Henry got rid of Salt and Luke Wells.

Stiaan van Zyl and Harry Finch added 43 for the third wicket before van Zyl feathered a Thomas delivery behind. Finch went for eleven two overs later when he was caught in the slips off Callum Haggett with 194 still required.

Brown and Wright saw Sussex through to tea without further loss before Wright went on the attack after the break.

He played some glorious strokes, finding the boundary on eight occasions – including an enormous hook for six -  during his 58-ball stay at the crease.

Just as the veteran looked like he was going to win the game for Sussex, he was superbly caught and bowled by Haggett to add another twist.

Coming together at 158-5, Brown and Burgess took the runs required to below a hundred.

The return of Henry to the attack swung the pendulum back towards the home side, however, when he bowled Burgess for 17.

Robinson was out lbw to one that kept low from Podmore five overs later, but whilst Brown was at the crease Sussex still had more than a fighting chance.

The Sussex skipper played with enormous character, tenaciously resisting Henry’s brilliance, scrapping for singles and making sure he capitalised on any loose deliveries.

But Brown eventually lost his battle with the division’s runaway leading wicket taker when the New Zealander trapped him in front with the first ball after a lengthy interruption whilst the Rouse received treatment on an injured finger.

The loss of the captain signalled the end for Sussex, who lost their final three wickets for ten runs and fell to a first defeat of the season.

The home side take 20 points from the match, with Sussex heading home with three.

Speaking at the close, Sussex head coach Jason Gillespie gave his analysis of Henry’s match-winning intervention with the bat: “We spoke earlier in the day about when lower order players come in and start playing big shots because we had a similar situation in our last game. On that occasion we changed our game and our plans and we paid for that.

“Coming into this game we reaffirmed that if a delivery is good enough for a top order player then it’s certainly good enough for a tail-ender, so I thought we did well to stick to the game plan today.

“The opposition are allowed to play well after all, but with Henry today it was play and miss, play and miss, smack a four. He played with a positive mindset, chanced his arm and got away with it.”

“That 74-run partnership [between Henry and Podmore] was vital when we’ve finally gone down by 58 runs overall. Yes, it’s easy to point to Henry’s knock as the reason, but if you look at the game overall we had opportunities where we could have been more effective with both bat and ball.

“We’ll move on from here and learn important lessons. The sun will rise in the morning and we’ll start preparing for the next block of white ball cricket.” 

Sussex will have a chance to exact revenge in just a few days – albeit with the white ball – when Kent visit The 1st Central County Ground on Thursday for both sides’ first match in the Royal London One-Day Cup.