New signing Ed Joyce insists he has moved to Sussex for cricketing reasons.

Several counties coveted the 30-year-old left-hander when he decided to leave after ten seasons with Middlesex.

He said: “It is my first move and I’ve put a lot of thought into it and had many chats with my wife.

It hasn’t been an easy decision but I believe it’s the right move.

“The work ethic of the club and their recent successes have appealed to me for a while now and I’m hoping that these values and achievements will have a positive effect on my cricket. I’m very excited about the move.”

First division rivals Nottinghamshire, Warwickshire, Surrey and Hampshire – Test match counties with far greater resources than Sussex – all approached Joyce.

But a few weeks after meeting Mark Robinson and chairman Jim May at the end of the season, Robinson got the call he was hoping for last week when Joyce returned from the Stanford Twenty/20 to tell him he was joining Sussex.

Robinson first identified Joyce as a player he would like to sign when he became Sussex coach three years ago.

He made his move in the summer when Joyce’s contract was coming to an end.

What impressed May when he and Robinson met Joyce in Brighton in September was how little they talked about money.

May said: “Ed’s record speaks for itself but I was incredibly impressed with him as a person.

“He is coming here for cricketing reasons. This club is incredibly well regarded in English cricket. We have a first-rate management team and an ethos and stability in our cricket management which is greatly admired.

“That’s what we talked to Ed about mostly.

“We’re lucky that the players we have brought to the club in recent years, guys like Murray Goodwin, Mushtaq Ahmed and Yasir Arafat, are fantastic people as well as great players and Ed’s the same. He has got a great reputation in the game.”

Joyce is arguably Sussex’s best English-born signing since Chris Adams’ arrival in 1997 kickstarted the most successful period in their history. There have been others in that time like Paul Hutchinson and Ian Ward who came with great expectations but failed to deliver on the pitch.

Only Joyce and his advisors will know how Sussex’s financial offer compared with the others he had but it is fair to say Sussex have pushed the boat out to bring him to Hove.

They will carry a staff of 22 pros next season, their biggest squad for more than a decade, after re-signing Arafat and awarding new deals to eight of the nine players out of contract.

Their full-strength side, with Joyce filling the problem position of No. 3, now looks capable of challenging for the Championship and, although prize money has jumped by 150% for 2009, the real riches are in Twenty20.

Sussex need to be in the first division when the English Premier League starts in 2010 so they have a better chance of competing for the world stars who will help fill the County Ground.

Joyce, with a one-day average of 33.97, can only help their cause. It also sends out a strong signal to their rivals that Sussex plan to be just as competitive even without the talismanic Mushtaq and with a new captain at the helm.