Chris Adams has called on Sussex's top six to think big this season.

He believes the key to a successful Championship defence is large totals, particularly at Hove, which gives his bowlers, particularly Mushtaq Ahmed, licence to attack.

Easier said than done of course, especially on slow pitches and slow outfields such as this one.

But Richard Montgomerie answered his captain's call in style yesterday with his biggest score at headquarters for nearly five years.

Montgomerie batted throughout the second day and will resume this morning on 174 with a maiden double hundred firmly in his sights. So far he has batted for nine hours, 20 minutes, faced 437 balls and hit 14 fours.

It was only his fourth hundred in the last four years which is a surprise when you consider that during that time he has reached 50 on 27 occasions but has failed to convert into three figures.

A pitch with little pace and an accurate Kent seam attack meant it was hard going for much of the day.

Sussex's lead was only 38 when they lost their sixth wicket but Rana Naved came in to give the innings and Montgomerie fresh impetus.

The Pakistan all-rounder launched a counter-attack which brought him 75 off just 84 balls including ten fours, most of them driven powerfully through the off side, and three sixes all off slow left-armer Min Patel.

They added 117 in 31 overs - a new seventh wicket record against Kent - and even when Rana departed to the fourth ball after tea James Kirtley came in to demonstrate that it is not just in his bowling that he looks a cricketer re-born this season.

Kirtley reached only the fourth half-century of his career in the last over when he struck Joe Denly for six and collected two runs off the final ball to stretch Sussex's lead to 249.

But this was Montgomerie's day. No one works harder at their game than the 35-year-old who has the added responsibility of organising his benefit this year.

Coach Mark Robinson feels the increased workload could help him because it means he will have less time to fret over his failures. He will always find time for a net though.

It has been a chanceless knock so far and although there were long periods when the boundaries dried up - he scored just two fours between 50 and 100 - that said as much for the Kent attack, who only really struggled when Rana changed the tempo of the innings.

His first two scoring shots were fours crunched through extra cover and 40 of his first 50 runs came in boundaries. His third six clattered into the Gilligan Stand - perhaps he should put in for the contract to demolish the thing - but it was not all brute force. In Patel's next over he cheekily reverse-swept him to the mid-wicket fence.

Rana made it look easy but that was never the case for the stroke-players at the top of the order.

Chris Nash got out to the next ball after reaching a patient half-century which will have given him huge confidence and Simon Cook prised out Sussex's big two - Murray Goodwin and Chris Adams - in the space of three balls. Goodwin drilled a return catch off a ball which stopped in the pitch and Adams nicked one which swung late.

Even Matt Prior seemed inhibited by a combination of the pitch and Kent's plan to cut off his strong scoring areas by packing the off side field. He was eventually leg before to Darren Stevens and Luke Wright gave Robbie Joseph his third wicket when he chipped a drive to mid-wicket.

That was as good as it got for Kent and even after Rana's departure, Kirtley came in to add 94 with the immovable Montgomerie.