Talk of winning a first Championship title in their history has been banned from the Sussex dressing room and rightly so.

After all, the season has not even reached the halfway point yet.

Yesterday, though, the county gave a pretty decent impression of a team capable of offering a sustained challenge to Surrey's bid for a fourth pennant in the last five years.

It was unforgiving work in the 80 degree heat at Arundel but their bowlers stuck to their task magnificently until the last hour when Graham Napier and Ryan ten Doeschate took Essex from 215-8 to 305-8.

Essex's former Zimbabwean Test captain Andy Flower felt a typically slow Arundel pitch should have yielded 450 first innings runs and Sussex should be happy with their opening day's work.

For once it was their quick bowlers rather than Mushtaq Ahmed who did the damage, none more so than Jason Lewry, almost nine years since he made his debut against Middlesex and numbered Mike Gatting among his victims on an unforgettable introduction to the county game.

Lewry has sent down a lot of overs since that July day back in 1994 but he remains one of the best exponents of swing bowling in the country when conditions are right and they usually are at arborial Arundel.

Lewry finished with 4-57 from 24 overs, a superb effort in stamina-sapping conditions, although it was not much of a surprise that Mushtaq Ahmed picked up the prize wicket of the day when Nasser Hussain became his 53rd victim of a prolific summer.

The private battle between Mushtaq and Hussain enthralled a 3,000 crowd for the best part of four hours, but it was one the England captain appeared to be winning.

He made his intentions clear early on, coming down the pitch in Mushtaq's fourth over to deposit him into the bank at long on.

Even Hussain, like countless other batsmen this season, can be made to look foolish by Mushtaq. One inside edge off an attempted pull-drive instead rolled between Hussain's legs on its way to the fine leg boundary.

Quick feet and supple wrists enabled him to play Mushtaq with as much comfort as any batsman this season with the exception of Surrey's Graham Thorpe and it was a surprise when he fell five runs short of what would have been his second hundred in three games after a vigil which lasted 12 minutes short of five hours.

Hussain came down the pitch to try and hit over the top, changed his mind and when the ball fizzed up into the off side off bat and pad, Richard Montgomerie stuck out his left hand to deflect it upwards before completing the catch at the second attempt.

Hussain, who collected the majority of his 11 fours with sweetly-timed drives between point and extra cover, waited for umpire Barrie Leadbeater to raise his finger before departing to generous applause.

He held the fort for most of the day but Essex built only two 50 partnerships until Napier and ten Doeschate wielded the long handle to good effect in the evening sunshine when the Sussex attack finally started to flag.

James Kirtley had given them an ideal start by having Paul Grayson caught behind for a fifth-ball duck and James Foster fell on 23 when Montgomerie held a juggling catch at slip to give Lewry the first of four wickets.

Hussain and Flower briefly prospered in a third-wicket stand of 66 in 24 overs, but Kirtley returned to the attack to have a clearly non-plussed Flower leg before and during the afternoon Sussex's disciplined approach continued to reap rewards.

Aftab Habib was caught behind in the first over after lunch, defeated by Lewry's late away swing, and the left-armer had 2-16 from six overs in his second spell when Ronnie Irani, who never settled, got a thick edge to second slip.

James Middlebrook played across a straight one from the persevering Robin Martin-Jenkins and at 149-6 Essex were in the cart.

Hussain and Jon Dakin staged a recovery either side of tea, putting on 55 for the seventh wicket, but when Dakin mis-timed a pull three overs after Mushtaq had snared Hussain, Sussex sensed a quick kill.

Instead, their grip on the match was loosened for the first time in the day. Napier, who has a first-class hundred to his name, put conditions into perspective with a series of lusty leg side blows and found a willing partner in South African ten Doeschate.

A straight six from Napier persuaded Chris Adams to withdraw Mushtaq from the firing line and the former England under-19 captain brought up his second half-century of the season with a majestic hook off Kirtley which perfectly bisected the two fielders on the leg side for his seventh boundary.

By the close, Essex's tenth- wicket pair had extended their stand to 90, the best of the innings and collected two more unlikely bonus points.

Sussex were left needing to make a quick breakthrough with the new ball this morning to make sure their good work for three-quarters of the first day was not squandered.