Sussex suffered their ninth National League defeat by 74 runs against Derbyshire at the County Ground.

Chasing Derbyshire's 240, the Peakites' biggest one-day league total against Sussex and the highest score in the competition at Hove this season, Sussex were on course until Matthew Dowman removed Tony Cottey and Adams with successive deliveries.

Cottey and Richard Montgomerie had launched the reply confidently, but after he was caught behind for 43, by some way his highest NUL score of the season, pushing forward to Dowman, Sussex steadily lost momentum.

Adams was leg before playing across a straight one and although Goodwin and Robin Martin-Jenkins put on 62 in 16 overs to sustain home interest there was still time for one more inglorious batting collapse of the type Sussex supporters have got accustomed to in this competition.

Martin-Jenkins holed out to long on and Goodwin, who top-scored with 45, was bowled around his legs sweeping at Lian Wharton in the next over. Davis was caught on the mid-wicket boundary and in the following over Carl Hopkinson was dismissed in identical fashion to Martin-Jenkins and Paul Hutchison run out by the length of the pitch after Billy Taylor had turned down a single to mid on.

When Taylor holed out to long off to give Nathan Dumelow his third success, Sussex had lost their last six wickets for 11 runs in 14 balls.

Derbyshire's total was built around a second successive League half-century from Christopher Bassano. The Tasmanian-born opener played some 2nd XI cricket for Sussex a few years ago as he tried to earn a county contract and he batted yesterday with the determination of a man keen to prove a point.

His 58-ball 51 included eight boundaries and a pulled six off Mark Robinson as he shared in half-century stands with Michael Di Venuto, who needed no introduction to a Sussex audience, and Dumelow.

Even after Bassano became the second of four victims for Taylor, Derbyshire's progress was sustained by Dominic Hewson's 32, 34 off 27 balls from Jason Kerr, who later took an outstanding one-handed catch to remove Montgomerie, and Dowman's 26 from 20 deliveries.

Apart from Taylor and off-spinner Davis, who removed Dumelow and Dowman in a canny spell, Sussex's bowling was poor and they failed to send down a single maiden in 45 overs.

Paul Hutchison deserves some leeway in what was his first one-day game for the county and his first appearance of an injury-ravaged season since the end of April.

But Mark Robinson was unusually wayward, bowling six wides in his seven overs which cost 51 runs. The wickets of Steve Selwood and Dowman will have been scant consolation for a player not used to being treated with such apparent disdain by opposition batsmen.

Even Martin-Jenkins was expensive so it was a good job that Taylor kept plugging away to take his league aggregate for the season to 20 wickets. He had Di Venuto taken at short fine leg in his second over before inducing a mis-timed pull from Bassano which was easily taken by Davis on the square leg boundary.

Taylor returned to remove Kerr and Luke Sutton in his last over to record a second NUL 'four-for' of the season while Hopkinson marked his first appearance of the season as replacement for Kevin Innes, who had a thigh strain, with a sparkling fielding display.

It was one of the few highlights and now Sussex will need to beat promoted Essex at Chelmsford in their final game to make sure of avoiding the wooden spoon.