County Championship: Glamorgan hold on for draw at Sussex

Sussex and Glamorgan played out a draw at Hove as the home side's declaration came just too late for them to force home their advantage.

Set 275 in 51 overs, Glamorgan managed to bat out time at 154 for five.

Spinner Jack Carson gave Sussex hope of an unlikely win with a testing three-wicket spell.

Both teams were without key players and 101 overs were lost to bad weather.

Glamorgan will now play in the second division at the end of the season with Sussex in the third division.

Sussex declared their second innings at 263-6 with Ali Orr making 80 to follow up 67 on debut and Ben Brown 100 not out.

Brown moved up through the gears in the afternoon, reaching his century off 134 balls with a pulled six off Timm van der Gugten before marching off.

A required run-rate of 5.39 never seemed likely to tempt Glamorgan, especially once the normally aggressive Lloyd was caught at slip off Stuart Meaker for 17.

With the ball turning appreciably, Sussex opted for the double spin attack of Jack Carson and Will Beer to keep their hopes alive in the final session.

Carson had Colin Ingram caught at short leg for 27, and Billy Root caught at slip for 12 while Kiran Carlson might have been stumped in a frenetic start to his innings and was eventually given out caught at short-leg.

At the other end, the obdurate Joe Cooke was brilliantly caught by Aaron Thomason at short leg off Beer for 19 to keep Sussex going into the final over of the game.

With captain Chris Cooke nursing a thumb injury, Andrew Salter was promoted to steady the ship and serenely saw out time with Dan Douthwaite.

The small crowd were treated to the welcome sight of England paceman Jofra Archer bowling during the lunch interval as he continues his return to fitness after elbow surgery, while colleague Chris Jordan was doing fitness and fielding drills after a groin injury.

Sussex captain Ben Brown told BBC Radio Sussex:

"I'm very proud, we've had so much to endure this week with eight players unavailable (through Covid and isolation), pretty much all of them would have played. We're in crazy times and the way the group responded, the commitment and effort was fantastic.

"We dominated the game in the end and if it had not been for some (bad) weather, we would have had time to win the game.

"It wasn't a (personal) hundred I thought I was ever getting, I was going to declare that over anyway, so it was just a fantastic moment for me.

"We wanted about 50 overs (to bowl), with about 250 (runs target), we ended up getting more than we needed. But we were without a first (choice) bowling attack, we couldn't take too many risks, and we didn't expect the pitch to spin as it did. You can say 'declare earlier', but we've had some teams knock them off here when the pitch has gone quite flat on day four."

Glamorgan coach Matthew Maynard told BBC Sport Wales;

"My nerves are fine, we've done a lot of work in the winter about playing spin on turning pitches and I thought the guys adapted well and it was very comfortable in the end.

"Carson bowled really well and there were two great catches by Thomason, but I'm more than happy with the way we played. I think Carson is a very talented young spinner, one of the best we've seen this year and he's got good prospects whether that's in this country or in Ireland.

"Most people would have put us in division three for the last four matches of the season, but we've shown a bit of character this season and we want to get stronger and more resilient as a group.

"Part of that is getting belief in one's ability and that's coming along nicely, we aren't the finished article but we have shown more of that this season although it'll be a tough four games (in division two)."