Yorkshire CCC survival bid goes down to final week

A win would be enough, while a draw could be sufficient or even a defeat.

The only certainty is that anything could happen and most probably will; hold on to your hats, as the old saying goes.

Anthony McGrath, the Yorkshire head coach, is taking nothing for granted after his side were pleased to leave Hove with a draw against Sussex.

They conceded a first innings lead of 54 and then tumbled to 6-3 in their second innings before reaching 109-3 when hands were shaken at 4.20pm, 20 minutes after the players had gone off for bad light at Hove.

“It's really congested down there, and for it to go to the last game of the season, I guess, is testament to the strength of the division,” said McGrath, whose seventh-placed team are six points above ninth-placed Durham, who occupy the second and final relegation place, with Hampshire, in eighth, sandwiched in between.

“There's a lot still to play for and a lot of permutations that can still happen.

“We might be safe with a draw, but you can’t go into a game, I believe anyway, thinking that you just need a draw, so we’ll still try and look to win the match.

“The challenge to the boys is to make sure that we put in one of our best performances of the season and, if we do that, I think that’ll be enough.”

After 142 of 288 overs had been lost on the first three days here (who would have thought that in mid-September?), another 29 fell by the wayside before play finally started at 1pm on day four after persistent drizzle.

Sussex were 232-8 in reply to the visitors’ 194, and both sides picked up another bonus point in the 4.2 overs delivered as they were dismissed for 250 – Yorkshire for taking the ninth wicket when George Hill had Sean Hunt caught behind, then Sussex for reaching the 250 milestone before Hill ended the innings by having Jaydev Unadkat slicing to Dom Bess at first slip to finish with 4-43.

It was a smart catch by Bess, high to his right, and it seemed to have prevented Sussex from forging enough of a lead to put Yorkshire under significant pressure. Not so.

After 21 balls of their second innings, Yorkshire were in their 6-3 pickle, all of the wickets to James Coles, the tall left-arm spinner, who briefly turned into a modern-day Hedley Verity, who famously took 7-9 on this ground in the corresponding game in 1939, the last before the Second World War.

Bowling from the Sea End, beyond which the English Channel frothed and foamed on another grey and gloomy day, Coles had Adam Lyth clipping to mid-wicket, Mayank Agarwal prodding to slip, and Fin Bean inside-edging to short-leg, where Oli Carter took an excellent catch, diving forward.

But Jonny Bairstow and James Wharton combined in a fourth-wicket partnership of 103 in 33.3 overs to take the sting out of a sticky situation, dousing any hopes of a Sussex triumph.

Bairstow was fluent despite the predicament, striking 11 fours in an innings of 64 from 100 balls, with Wharton (23 from 105 balls) the anchoring foil.

It was Bairstow’s seventh half-century in the Championship this year. The captain and his crew have one more test left.

“We probably weren’t at our best in this game, but Jonny and ‘Warts’ played really well,” said McGrath.

“We were disappointed we didn’t get more points with the bat first innings, but I think taking 11 from the game, given the bigger picture with the league, we’ll take that.”