Cocah Mark Davis admits Sussex must do their homework over the winter as they prepare to go into the relative unknown next year.

Sussex will launch their Championship campaign at Northamptonshire on April 10 with the rest of the fixtures announced at 9am tomorrow.

It will only be the fourth time in 16 years that Sussex have played a four-day game at Wantage Road while similar challenges face them when they travel to the likes of Leicestershire, Gloucestershire and Derbyshire following their relegation from the top flight last season.

Sussex won the title the last time they spent a season in division two in 2010 and Davis says familiarising themselves with the teams and players they are set to come up against will be vital to their chances of repeating that success.

Davis said: “We’ve not played in this division for six years so we’ll need to do our homework and analysis over the winter. It is going to be a busy winter as you want to get all that kind of preparation done before the season begins.

“We’ll be trawling through video footage of everyone we are going to face to make sure we are ready to go when that first game comes around. It is so important to get off to a good start and to help you do that you need to put in the work now.

“It doesn’t really matter who we play in the first game as we have to play everyone home and away throughout the season. It would perhaps have been nice to have started at home but it’s not a big deal.”

Sussex will also kick-off their NatWest T20 Blast campaign away from home when they travel to Bristol to play Gloucestershire on Friday May 20 while Luke Wright’s men take on Essex at Hove in their opening game in the Royal London One-Day Cup on Monday June 6.

Sussex’s full fixture list will be published at theargus.co.uk/sport from 9am tomorow.