County Championship: Sussex hold record-breaking Leicestershire to draw at Hove

Leicestershire's record score also contained career-best double centuries for Colin Ackermann and fellow South African Wiaan Mulder

Leicestershire are still looking for their first County Championship win of the season but they had one of their most memorable days in the drawn match against Sussex at Hove.

They scored 756-4, the highest in their first-class history, as South African pair Colin Ackermann (277 not out) and Wiaan Mulder (235 not out) both made maiden double centuries.

Their unbroken fifth-wicket partnership of 477 was also a record for any wicket for Leicestershire - and beat the County Championship's fifth wicket too as the Foxes went past their previous record score, 701-4 declared at Worcester in 1906.

Until their declaration, Ackermann looked capable of setting a new individual record for the county, the 309 not out made by his near-namesake HD Ackerman against Glamorgan at Cardiff in 2006.

But the records made less happy reading for Sussex. This was the most runs ever scored against them, beating the 726 they leaked at Nottingham in 1895 - and it was also the highest score in 150 years of cricket at Hove.

Leicestershire declared at lunch, setting Sussex 168 to avoid an innings defeat. But the home side played positively, as Ali Orr and Tom Clark put on 79 for the first wicket.

Sussex went on to make 220-1, with Orr making an unbeaten 106, the third century of his career and his second in as many matches, while Tom Alsop finished with 60 not out as he topped two hundred runs for the game.

Report supplied by the ECB Reporters' Network.

Sussex coach Ian Salisbury told BBC Radio Sussex:

"We batted excellently. To score that amount of runs is a true reflection of where some of our batters are getting to. I can see the progress and the influence Cheteshwar Pujara has had. If you get a score of 588, you would have thought Puj would have scored a large majority of those.

"These are the wickets we want to play on. English cricket want to produce cricketers. If you can learn to bowl on this wicket, you will end up playing Test match cricket.

"I would have played Archie Lenham if he had not had Covid. We would have gone with a three-spinner attack. We lost Tom Haines, unfortunately, which is the one bad part of this game. But I genuinely believe if we keep playing on wickets like this, our bowlers will learn to bowl on them."

Leicestershire captain Callum Parkinson:

"It was a long day and a really good pitch but what Colin Ackermann and Wiaan Mulder achieved was nothing short of extraordinary.

"To have the patience and desire to bat that length of time, the concentration, the level of skill, was magnificent.

"They were amazing efforts and I'm very proud of them."