No one did more than Mushtaq Ahmed to help bring the Championship to Sussex for the first time in their history last year.

Now the leg spinner seems to be on a mission to make sure the county do not go from heroes to zeros by getting relegated.

Since the four-day programme resumed three weeks ago, the man with magic in his fingers has taken 23 wickets in three games, two of which Sussex have won convincingly.

On the final day at Lord's claimed his first ten-wicket match haul of the season as the county polished off Middlesex by 143 runs to claim their first Championship win at the home of cricket for 18 years.

Five more second innings wickets took him to 55 for the season and although a second successive 100 wicket summer looks unlikely, it is not entirely out of the question the way he is bowling at the moment.

The pitches have dried out, Mushy's fingers have warmed up and the majority of first division batsmen still do not appear to have much of a clue of how to play him.

With Mushtaq in such good form and three of their five remaining matches at Hove, the county can surely start looking up the table now rather than over their shoulders.

Mushtaq deserves the plaudits after following his 5-66 in the first innings with 5-83, including two wickets in successive overs at the start of play which fatally undermined Middlesex's pursuit of a target of 299.

He also acknowledged that Mohammad Akram and James Kirtley played important roles at the other end with high-quality spells of fast bowling.

Akram produced the best ball of the match, an inswinging yorker which plucked out middle stump, to unseat Paul Weekes while Kirtley should be able to celebrate the 500th first-class wicket of his career in front of the Sussex crowd against Worcestershire next week after moving to within three of the landmark with 3-37. Like Mushtaq, he is bowling better now than at any stage of the season.

Dropping Robin Martin-Jenkins lengthened the tail and after losing seven wickets for 21 in the first innings and seven for 29 in the second, it seems the county need a proper batsman at No7.

Jason Lewry bowled just four overs and looked rusty after a three-week lay-off. He also jarred his knee in the field on the first day.

With Luke Wright unavailable again next week because of England under-19 commitments, the temptation must be to bring back Martin-Jenkins, especially as Kevin Innes appears to have disappeared from the first team picture altogether.

Adams said: "My only disappointment was that we let them off the hook twice with the bat. We were slightly unbalanced because we left Robin out which was a gamble, although I still think it was important to see what sort of condition Jason Lewry was in."

Mushtaq would happily have wheeled away at both ends had he been allowed, especially after taking those two early wickets.

Sven Koenig cut his seventh ball of the day to slip and in the next over Ben Hutton failed to pick the googly to make Middlesex's already difficult task on a wearing pitch even harder.

Akram and Kirtley had done a good job to make sure Middlesex did not get their run chase off to a flyer yesteday and they were just as effective as Adams rotated them in short bursts.

Akram had Jamie Dalrymple caught at second slip off a flat-footed waft before removing Weekes in his next over. Mushtaq picked up his third wicket in the intervening over with a top-spinner which David Nash could only thrust his front pad at.

Ben Scott kept Owais Shah company for ten overs before losing his middle stump to a nip-backer which kept low in the second over of Kirtley's new spell.

Shah batted sensibly but no one could stay with him for any length of time. Simon Cook hammered a few defiant blows after lunchbut he was soon bowled offering no shot to the googly and Kirtley had wrapped up victory by 2.40pm when he had Mel Betts and Glenn McGarath caught in the slips in successive overs.