Farbrace takes positives as rain denies Sussex at Leicester

Frequent heavy showers killed off any prospect of a positive result from Sussex's visit to Leicestershire in the Vitality County Championship, meaning no play was possible at all on the final scheduled day of their Division Two clash.

Skipper John Simpson's maiden double century had put Sussex in a strong position on day three, which ended with Leicestershire 270 in arrears at 86 for 1 in their second innings after Sussex had declared at 694 for 9 just after tea, a lead of 356 on first innings.

But after a saturated outfield delayed the start on day four, the combination of more showers and the safety issues raised by trying to remove the covering sheets in winds gusting to gale force gave umpires James Middlebrook and Paul Pollard little option but to abandon the match as a draw shortly before 1pm.

"It's disappointing, but looking at it another way, we've had three days of good cricket," Paul Farbrace, Sussex's coach, said. "The groundstaff did brilliantly to get us on considering the outfield is very soft and they've had a lot of rain here, like everywhere else… it was a shame for both sides that it couldn't be finished in the way both sides would have wanted, but I guess that's cricket in April.

"We can take a lot of positives from the game. We played good cricket last week and couldn't quite get over the line, and here we've bowled the opposition out for 330 and then batted ourselves into a position where there was only one side going to win the game. In both the first two games we've been in with a good chance of winning going into the last day, which is what we've talked about doing."

Alfonso Thomas, Leicestershire's coach, said that his side's bowling attack was "undercooked" with Josh Hull yet to return from injury, Rehan Ahmed on a pilgrimage and Chris Wright absent for "personal reasons".

Thomas said: "We knew it would be hard work for the bowlers. They stuck at it well for a long period of time but they were probably a little bit undercooked after the pre-season we have had, not the best of pre-seasons.

He also called for the ECB to reconsider their decision to introduce the Kookaburra ball for four rounds of the Championship season. "There has been a lot said about wanting to get rid of average bowlers in the English game but what the Kookaburra has done when it has been in use here is make average batters look very good," Thomas said. "Is that good for the game? Probably not.

"Would you rather have a guy like [Chris] Rushworth taking 70 wickets with the Dukes, or average batters making hundreds? And in a Test match played in England in English conditions I would back a Rushworth to bowl a team out but I probably wouldn't back a lot of the batters who've got runs against it here to go to Australia and score hundreds.

It means both sides have two draws from two matches so far, with Sussex the more frustrated, having seen a winning position come to nothing against Northamptonshire at Hove last week, with weather again having the last word.

Sussex take 14 points from this match, giving them 29 from two, with Leicestershire taking 12 to swell their early-season total to 25.