Sam Hain and Ed Barnard, with a fifth-wicket stand of 151 in 32 overs, gave Warwickshire the advantage on the opening day of their County Championship match against Sussex at Hove – before the home side fought back to achieve parity at the close.
Hain played a particularly exhilarating innings, using his feet and wrists to play a medley of inventive strokes to unsettle the Sussex bowlers.
He reached his half-century for the fifth time in as many Championship innings and went on to make 87 from 118 deliveries, with three sixes and seven fours.
Barnard, impressive in a support role, made 66.
It would have been worse for Sussex but for Henry Crocombe, their fastest and best bowler in only his second game of the season.
Crocombe missed the start of the summer with injury but took six wickets in the win over Hampshire in May. Here, he took 3-73, bending his back and achieving some pace.
Sussex and Warwickshire started the match without the respective services of Jofra Archer and Jacob Bethell, but with the shared hope that both players might be available for the last two days of the game if not selected by England for the second Test against India at Edgbaston.
Crocombe replaced Archer from the side that drew with Durham last week, while Zen Malik came in for Bethell in the side that had a similar stalemate with Somerset. Chris Rushworth also came in for Che Simmons.
The warm weather and the Kookaburra ball helped persuade Warwickshire to bat first, but the cloud cover and the grassy pitch still offered encouragement to the Sussex seamers.
The first session went Warwickshire’s way, the visitors exploiting the short boundary on the pavilion side of the ground as Sussex struggled for penetration.
Rob Yates, who has suffered indifferent form since his century in the opening match of the season, looked in particularly good form as he shared an opening stand of 79 with captain Alex Davies.
Davies gifted Sussex their first wicket in the 18th over, looking in two minds as he uppercut a short delivery from Crocombe to Fynn Hudson-Prentice on the deep point boundary. However, Warwickshire reached lunch on a comfortable 113-1.
The second session, when the sun came out and the ball turned soft, promised further riches for the batting side. But Sussex, protecting their seven bowlers from the heat with short spells and backing them up with spirited fielding, fought their way back onto level terms.
Warwickshire lost their second wicket on 174 when Tom Latham edged one down the leg side from Crocombe, ending a second-wicket stand of 95.
One run later, in Crocombe’s next over, Hudson-Prentice produced an excellent reflex catch at backward square-leg to dismiss Yates, who had struck 15 fours in his impressive 93 from 142 deliveries.
Six overs later, the challenging Gurinder Sandhu moved one away from Malik, for John Simpson to take the regulation catch behind the stumps, and Sussex were on top with Warwickshire 189-4, though they recovered to 242-4 at tea.
Sussex took the new ball at 308-4 and took three further wickets. Crocombe – who will make way if Archer joins the game – almost had Hain caught by at mid-on by Ollie Robinson, who finally had the right-hander well caught at leg gully by Tom Haines, before Barnard and Corey Rocchiccioli fell near the end.
ECB Reporters’ Network supported by Rothesay
