The return of two key batsmen can give Sussex's National League campaign a much needed boost tonight.

Tim Ambrose, absent for the three successive defeats by Scotland, Hampshire and Derbyshire, returns after a knee injury in the day-nighter against Lancashire at Hove (4.10pm).

And, providing he passes a pre-match fitness test, Chris Adams will lead the side after missing two matches with tennis elbow.

Sunday's defeat at Derby, their third in a week, has cast the Sharks further adrift in the battle to avoid the bottom four finish which would mean facing first class opposition in the early rounds of next season's C&G Trophy.

A win tonight would lift them above Durham but they are still eight points behind sixth-place Derbyshire albeit with a game in hand.

Their unexpected challenge for a first Championship is concentrating Sussex minds at the moment but Adams is desperate that his team pick up the winning thread again in the National League.

"We've had a depressing time in the one-dayers and no one is more disappointed about that than me," he said.

Lancashire will be looking for a win to lift them above Hampshire at the top of the second division table.

Sussex (from): Goodwin, Montgomerie, Cottey, Adams, Ambrose, Martin-Jenkins, Prior, Davis, Mushtaq Ahmed, Hutchison, Taylor, Hopkinson, Yardy.

Lancashire (from): Loye, Chilton, Sutcliffe, Law, Hooper, Schofield, Hegg, Martin, Wood, Mahmood, Keedy, Hogg.

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