County Championship: Cooke hits ton as Glamorgan pile on runs against Sussex

Chris Cooke’s 141 was his second century of the season to add to five 50s

Glamorgan piled up a massive 533-9 against Sussex as they delayed their declaration until after tea on day two at Hove.

Chris Cooke led the way with an aggressive 141 while India's Shubman Gill stroked an elegant 119.

But Sussex, needing 384 to avoid the follow-on, then raced to 88-1 in reply.

Glamorgan need to overhaul a nine-point Middlesex advantage to grab the second Championship promotion place - and follow Notts back up to Division One.

They would not be pleased by Middlesex's strong progress with the bat at Worcester.

Sussex, struggling at seventh in the table, have confirmed that head coach Ian Salisbury is "not currently part of the business" after being placed on gardening leave over the handling of spinner Jack Carson.

Sussex were without all-rounder Fynn Hudson-Prentice and keeper Charlie Tear in the field because of illness, but kept themselves in the game with two wickets in the first hour as Billy Root was yorked by Sean Hunt for 21 and Gill holed out off Carson for 119.

Gill went on the charge after reaching three figures, hitting Carson for three fours in his first over, but took one risk too many as he lofted one to Hunt at long-on, having hit 16 fours and two sixes.

Cooke dominated the afternoon session, reaching his century off just 136 balls as Glamorgan piled on the runs, getting useful help from James Harris (34) in a stand of 77.

Glamorgan had 469 on the board at tea, but strangely batted on, although that allowed Ajaz Patel to smash an entertaining 51 off 37 balls including three huge sixes.

Cooke swung hard towards the closing stages, hitting 14 fours and two sixes in his assured knock off 165 balls before nicking Hunt behind.

It was only the fourth time in Glamorgan's history they had passed 500 in successive matches.

Ali Orr and Tom Haines set off at lightning speed with a blitz of boundaries as 63 came off eight expensive overs from James Harris and Michael Hogan.

But they eventually found their lines and Orr fell lbw to Hogan for 45 off 38 balls before bad light halted play with 13 overs remaining.

Sussex coach James Kirtley told BBC Sussex Sport:

"(The Ian Salisbury news) is an obvious distraction for the lads but to see them go out this evening aware of what had happened and to show resilience in some testing conditions with some extraordinary shots of real quality from two young highly-skilled batters, they've shown some real form.

"We've talked a lot about distractions, the weather, anything that might be going on behind the scenes, the time of year when contracts are negotiated. It's very important for this young side to understand that's part of the game, and their ability to rise about these situations is a real skill.

"Glamorgan bat deep but we've talked at length with the young bowlers, Brad and Sean showed some character when it would have been easy to wave the white flag, and Danny Ibrahim went for three an over."

Glamorgan wicket-keeper batter Chris Cooke told BBC Sport Wales:

"It was good to see the side to the last batting point, brilliantly set up by Shubman, but it's going to be hard graft over the next two days similar to the last game.

"I've found a bit of consistency over the last few games and it's nice to finish off with a hundred. Shubman is different class, he's got a huge future ahead of him and hopefully we can get him back in the future.

"We wanted to have a little dart (bowling) at them and it's nice to have a lot of runs on the board, it's pretty quick-scoring so hopefully we can just bat once and put them under pressure.

"We have to win the game here first and just see what happens (with Middlesex at Worcester)."