Sussex travel to Northamptonshire for final match of the season

Sussex travel to Northamptonshire for their final match of the 2018 season, with play getting underway at 10:30am on Monday at The County Ground. 

Ben Brown's side will be hoping to end their Specsavers County Championship campaign with a win, having finished unbeaten at home after drawing with Warwickshire last week. 

It was the second draw between the two sides this season, after the stalemate at Edgbaston in April, and was enough to see Warwickshire seal their return to Division One.

Sussex were set a daunting task on day one, with the Bears winning the toss and reaching a total of 440 all out, but an excellent partnership between David Wiese and Ben Brown hauled the home side back into the match. 

Both were unlucky not to reach deserved centuries, but Wiese's 93, which also saw him surpass 5,000 First Class runs, and Brown's 99, were two brilliant knocks. 

Sussex were eventually dismissed for 343, and on the final day deployed nine bowlers and used three different wicketkeepers in the hope that the Bears would declare, but they batted out the day to finish on 381-3. 

During the match, Chris Jordan took his 300th First-Class wicket when he had Jonathan Trott caught by Harry Finch. Ollie Robinson also added three more wickets to his tally this season, consolidating his place as the leading English wicket-taker in either division with 67, and Jofra Archer reached 1,000 First-Class runs. 

Head coach, Jason Gillespie has made two changes to the squad that faced Warwickshire, with Archer rested and Tom Haines out with an ankle injury. Laurie Evans comes into the 13-man squad.

Sussex squad

Ben Brown (capt. & wk)

Will Beer

Danny Briggs

Michael Burgess

Laurie Evans

Harry Finch

Chris Jordan

Delray Rawlins

Ollie Robinson 

Abi Sakande

Phil Salt

Luke Wells

David Wiese

Opposition

Northants were left frustrated in their last outing, with rain curtailing their match against Gloucestershire. They currently sit in ninth place in Division Two, and in their last home match lost a thrilling encounter against Derbyshire by one wicket.

The last of their three victories this season came away to Durham at the end of August, winning comfortably by seven wickets.

Captain Alex Wakely is the side's leading run scorer this season with 582, and he is closely followed by Ricardo Vasconcelos who has 535. With the ball, Ben Sanderson has impressed, and leads the way with 55 wickets.

Northants have named a 14-man squad ahead of the match: Alex Wakely (C), Nathan Buck, Ben Cotton, Ben Curran, Brett Hutton, Rob Keogh, Richard Levi, Rob Newton, Luke Proctor, Adam Rossington (WK), Ben Sanderson, Charlie Thurston, Ricardo Vasconcelos, Said Zaib. 

Match Details & Coverage

All four days of the match are scheduled to begin at 10.30am. 

You will be able to follow the game via Northants' live stream, or via our Sussex Cricket Match Centre, which includes a live scorecard, live statistics and text commentary from the @SussexCCC twitter feed.