Sussex took another step towards their first Championship after Mark Davis's magnificent career-best helped transform their fortunes against Middlesex.

When Davis walked out to the middle on Saturday afternoon his side were 108-6 and in real danger of following on for the first time this season.

Fast forward 24 hours and Davis was acknowledging a standing ovation from the Hove crowd with 168 to his name, having helped Sussex's last four wickets add a staggering 430 runs.

Instead of trailing on first innings, the county had a lead of 145 and Middlesex lost five wickets in wiping out their arrears.

They closed on 157-5 with a lead of just 12, Davis having completed a memorable day by bowling Owais Shah in the penutlimate over.

At some stage during this unforgettable season every player, to coin a favourite phrase of coach Peter Moores, "has come to the party" and yesterday it was Davis's turn.

It is the main reason why the county are planning the biggest party in their 164-year history. One or two rival captains churlishly suggested over the weekend that Sussex's success is all down to a certain leg spinner from Lahore. They won't be invited.

Sussex's relatively sedate progress during the morning session, when they scored 86, may have had one or two of the former players gathered for their annual reunion fretting that there would not be enough time to force the victory which would all but wrap up the title with two games to go.

But the value of Davis's seven-and-a-half hour vigil and the supporting roles played by Jason Lewry and Billy Taylor in helping the last two wickets add 138 became apparent within six balls of Middlesex's second innings when Lewry got one to hold its line beautifully and remove the dangerous Andrew Strauss.

Taylor and Martin-Jenkins caught the mood as the Sussex seamers, all of whom bowled with exemplary control, made sure the hard work of Davis and partners was not frittered away.

Martin-Jenkins pinned Sven Koenig on the back leg, then Ben Hutton top-egded a hook after Taylor had surprised him with extra bounce.

By then Mushtaq Ahmed was wheeling away from the Cromwell Road End and, after several anguished appeals, he duly struck for the 96th time this season when Ben Hutton made the fatal mistake of playing back to a top-spinner.

The bonus was still to come and how fitting it was that Davis, in only his second over, was the recipient when Owais Shah, who had been dropped at slip on 27, was stumped having a reckless head-in-the-air charge down the pitch.

This was Davis's day and how well he played earlier on. The contrast in styles between the South African and Matt Prior as they rebuilt the innings on Saturday could not have been greater.

Davis took few risks but his judgement of what to leave and what to play was impeccable and the bad ball was invariably dispatched to the boundary.

Resuming on 97, he duly went to his first hundred for 14 months and then set about converting it into something more substantial.

Lewry helped him add 42 for the ninth wicket before Chris Peploe took a diving catch at mid on to intercept a mis-timed drive.

A glance at Taylor's record with the bat this season, 20 runs in four innings, suggested Middlesex would not be detained for too long.

But it was not long before they were seeking inspiration in an unusual way by requesting Joe Dawes, standing at point, to show his team-mates a few moves last seen on the dancefloors of his native Brisbane.

Dawes' hot-shoe shuffle may well have lightened the Middlesex mood, but it did not get them a precious wicket.

Once Davis had sufficient confidence in his partner's defensive technique he began to open his shoulders and, having broken one county record against Middlesex when he helped add 195 with Prior for the seventh wicket, he set about doing it again.

Davis went to his 150 by crashing Paul Weekes over the mid-wicket boundary before clearing the ropes again in the off-spinner's next over with a straight drive which clattered into the Gilligan Stand.

He eventually holed out to long on having faced 338 balls, 17 of which he hit for four.

Taylor's part in the fifth highest tenth-wicket stand in the county's history was a career-best 35 made in over two-and-a-half hours of bristling defiance.