Goodwin and Adams provide platform for victory

Surrey 193 and 296 Sussex 203 and 288-6 Sussex win by four wickets

Sussex jolted the County Championship pretenders, Surrey, with a stirring victory – their first at home this season – that cements them a little more firmly in third place in the First Division, simultaneously closing the gap on the leaders.

It was a collective effort that gladdened home hearts and pasted a big grin on the face of Sussex captain, Chris Adams, who praised his team's application throughout a demanding and absorbing match. "That is the first time I have ever beaten Surrey in a Championship game," he said.

To add injury to the insult of defeat Adams struck a potentially lethal blow during his excellent innings of 62, when he hammered a ball from Mushtaq Ahmed towards cover. It got no further then Surrey fielder Ian Ward, who was struck on the right side of his neck and dropped to the ground.

Adams said: "I hit that as hard as I have hit anything. It made an awful sound. It was quite sickening." Thankfully, Ward had made enough of a recovery to be able to leave the ground under his own steam, but it had been a frightening experience. "I didn't know where I had been hit at first, my whole head went numb," he explained.

"I panicked thinking I had been hit on the Adam's apple, then I found I was able to swallow. But it took about an hour for most of the feeling to come back, although my right arm and hand are still a bit numb and if it persists I will have an X-ray."

Surrey will have carried out a full post mortem on what was only their second defeat of the season. While they still lead the Championship, their cushion has lost some of its stuffing with second-placed Kent also winning this weekend.

Disgruntled Surrey supporters were already muttering about the wisdom of signing Mushtaq, whom one fan described as "a geriatric Pakistani leg-spinner." Unfair because according to the record books he is still only 32, and anyway he deserves no blame.

True there were "oohs", "aahs" and "ohs" from his team-mates after practically every ball he bowled, but all the exclamations in the world do not produce a single wicket, yet his figures were respectable, and he had made valuable contributions in the field and with the bat.

It was losing the toss and having to bat first that had Surrey going backwards and they should be applauded for the recovery they managed. They were handicapped by Test calls and injuries. It is unlikely that Adams and Murray Goodwin would have been able to take charge quite so readily after lunch as they built up their fourth-wicket stand to a significant 106 if Martin Bicknell or Saqlain Mushtaq (the man Mushtaq Ahmed replaces for the next couple of weeks) had been available.

Goodwin made a fine hundred, his third of the season, 10th for Sussex and 19th in all, reaching it in the same over that Adams slapped an Alex Tudor long hop straight to the substitute fielder, Michael Carberry, in the covers. An over later Goodwin departed, but there was no panic. Tim Ambrose, Kevin Innes and Robin Martin-Jenkins gathered enough runs to steer Sussex home with 29 overs to spare.