Rain ends Derbyshire hopes
The prospect of an intriguing finish between Derbyshire and Sussex at Derby was washed out by heavy rain which prevented any play on the final day
08-Jun-2010
The prospect of an intriguing finish between Derbyshire and Sussex at Derby was washed out by heavy rain which prevented any play on the final day.
The contest was in the balance after Sussex had collapsed to 71 for 7, a lead of 163, with South African left-arm spinner Robin Peterson taking four wickets for 10 runs, his best figures for Derbyshire. With the pitch becoming increasingly difficult to bat on, a target of around 200 would have been a testing one and England spinner Monty Panesar would have been expected to exploit the conditions.
But rain during the night and throughout the morning frustrated the ambitions of both teams and although lunch was taken early, there was no sign of any break in the weather. Another heavy shower forced umpires Michael Gough and David Millns to make the inevitable decision to call the game off just before 1pm - with Sussex taking 11 points and Derbyshire nine.
The draw halts a run of three consecutive County Championship defeats for Derbyshire and leaves Sussex without a victory in their last four matches. It also brought a soggy end to Sussex all-rounder Robin Martin-Jenkins' last away game in the Championship before he retires to take up a teaching post.
Martin-Jenkins had scored the fifth first-class century of his career in the first innings and Sussex would have been looking to him to take their lead past 200. But the 34-year-old was denied the chance to leave his mark on the Derbyshire attack for a second time as the weather put paid to what promised to be a pulsating finish to the Championship programme before the Twenty20 Cup takes centre stage for the next three weeks.
