Sussex bid to end Edgbaston jinx (From The Argus)

Sussex bid to end Edgbaston jinx

9:00am Tuesday 7th July 2009

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Sussex are planning a bold approach to end their horrendous run at Edgbaston.

Coach Mark Robinson wants his side to continue playing the positive cricket which has been so important in their one-day success when they start their crucial Championship match against Warwickshire in Birmingham today.

Sussex have only won once at their bogey ground in the Championship since 1961 and that was back in 1982.

They have also lost on five of their last six visits, including an innings defeat in 2007 when they went on to win a third Championship in five seasons and the Bears were relegated.

Robinson said: “We are going there to try to play as we have been in one-day cricket which is attacking, exciting cricket.”

The squad trained at Edgbaston yesterday after celebrating Sunday’s win over Gloucestershire in the semi-finals of the Friends Provident Trophy which secured a tenth visit to Lord’s for a one-day final and second since Robinson took charge.

And the message as the players re-grouped in Birmingham was: “Let’s attack Warwickshire.”

Robinson added: “Sunday was a great day and we enjoyed the celebrations but Championship cricket is our bread and butter and we care as much about it as the one-day competitions.

“The challenge from me and (skipper) Mike Yardy to the group will be to attack Warwickshire and play with the freedom and adventure we have shown in one-day cricket.

“There will be times when it might be frustrating and we have to sit in. It doesn’t mean we go gung-ho but we can take a lot of confidence from our one-day performances into four-day cricket.”

It might help that several of the players who have endured such misery in Birmingham in recent years are no longer with the county.

In fact, there could be just four survivors in the line-up today who played in the innings defeat in 2007 and that includes Carl Hopkinson, favourite to replace Matt Prior who is preparing for the first Ashes Test in Cardiff.

Sunday’s hero Ed Joyce certainly has fond memories of Edgbaston, having scored his career-best 211 for former county Middlesex there in 2006. He averages 63 in ten innings in Birmingham with another hundred and three fifties.

He insists that coming back down to earth after Sunday’s massive high will not be difficult.

He said: “We have played a lot of four-day cricket recently including the Australia game so I don’t think it will be hard work.

“Warwickshire are below us in the first division so it’s an opportunity to get one over them and start looking at the right end of the table.”

Warwickshire are in the bottom two, although they games in hand on some of their rivals, and a blunt bowling attack is their problem.

They have only picked up eight bowling points, half as many as the next side in division one, and now New Zealand off-spinner Jeetan Patel has had to fly home early because of a knee injury and Warwickshire are unlikely to have an overseas replacement signed in time.

Ian Bell is also in the England squad although Warwickshire may nominate a substitute if he is released from Ashes duty tomorrow morning.

SQUADS – Sussex (from): Nash, Yardy, Joyce, Goodwin, Wright, Smith, Hopkinson, Hodd, Martin-Jenkins, Arafat, Rayner, Lewry.

Warwickshire (from): Westwood, Frost, Trott, Troughton, Clarke, Javid, Ambrose, Botha, Carter, Woakes, Rankin, Tahir, Barker.

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