Richard Montgomerie made his first hundred in one-day league cricket as Sussex shone under the Hove floodlights last night.

Man of the match Montgomerie made 108 and shared in a county record first wicket stand of 176 with Murray Goodwin as Sussex eased to a comfortable 27-run victory over bottom of the table Essex in the Norwich Union League.

Their third win in the second division wasnot enough to lift them out of seventh place, but they are now on 12 points along with two other counties, Lancashire and Derbyshire, and still have a game in hand on the top two Durham and Worcestershire.

Montgomerie believes Sussex can still mount a promotion challenge in the second half of the season with five of their remaining nine games at Hove, three of them under floodlights.

He said: "Before this game we needed to win eight out of ten and now it is seven out of nine so we can still go up, absolutely.

"I have felt in good form in the one-dayers so it was nice to get a hundred and to break another record which I wasn't aware of.

"The wicket was on the slow side which made it hard for new batsmen coming in. Even Murray and I struggled a bit in the first ten overs, but once we got going we batted well together again."

Sussex's first-day night match of the season attracted a crowd of more than 3,000, who will have enjoyed their team's emphatic triumph over a disappointing Essex team who remain bottom of the table with just one win.

Montgomerie and Goodwin set the tone and although Sussex were unable to accelerate as much as they would have liked as the ball lost its hardness in the last ten overs, a total of 241-3 was always going to test an Essex team without their best batsman Stuart Law because of a finger injury.

The outcome was effectively settled by the 15th over when Essex were reduced to 44-4.

Paul Grayson and James Foster at least ensured respectability for the visitors in a fifth wicket stand of 85 in 20 overs, but Essex were never really in the hunt and they came up well short, finishing on 214-7.

The perceived wisdom in day-night games is to bat first and although matches at Hove have bucked the overall trend, with eight teams winning after chasing in the 11 floodlit games there, Chris Adams was still happy to get first use of an easy-paced strip.

He would have been even happier a couple of hours later to still have his pads on in the dressing room as Montgomerie and Goodwin tucked into some wayward Essex bowling.

As usual, Montgomerie scored predominantly on the leg side while Goodwin cut and pulled with ferocious power when the bowlers dropped short.

Their second 50 together was scored off just 45 balls while a shoddy Essex fielding performance was best summed up when Ricky Anderson, whose four overs had earlier cost 36 runs, embarassingly grabbed thin air instead of the ball trying to stop a straight drive from Montgomerie.

That boundary took the first wicket partnership past the previous one-day league record of 162 set by David Smith and Franklyn Stephenson eight years ago and was their sixth in all cricket during an increasingly productive season.

The pair had the county's all time record stand of 189 in their sights when Goodwin, who had converted his third competition half-century into a season's best 87 off 106 balls, clipped off-spinner Tim Mason to short mid-wicket in the 34th over.

Even at that stage there was evidence that the Reader ball was losing its hardness and instead of leading an onslaught in the last ten overs Adams had to settle for finding the gaps and keeping the scoreboard ticking over with singles.

He was there to usher Montgomerie to his first hundred in 71 innings in the competition's various guises which came when he clipped Ashley Cowan through backward square leg for his eighth boundary, the century coming off 121 balls.

He added another four in three more deliveries faced before he was run out in the penultimate over by Mason's throw from long on as he chanced a second run.

Adams hit just one four in his 25 off 36 balls before perishing in the last over having a huge mow at Cowan and slicing the ball to short third man.

Essex needed to score at 5.4 runs an over, but the asking rate was soon climbing as James Kirtley and Jason Lewry produced excellent new ball spells.

Kirtley was soon cranking up the speedometer to 87mph while Lewry, playing only his second game in the competition, tested the batsmen with consistent, late inswing.

Will House's one-bounce throw from backward square leg ran out Stephen Peters in the third over and Lewry claimed a deserved reward in the seventh when Graham Napier got a thick edge to Matt Prior behind the stumps trying an ambitious cut.

Ronnie Irani and Darren Robinson briefly raised the tempo in a third wicket stand of 36 in seven overs, but when both fell off successive deliveries Essex's goose was effectively cooked.

Irani clipped Adams straight to House who dived to his left to take the catch at square leg and Robinson belted the first ball of the next over from namesake Mark to short extra cover, much to the delight of the Sussex seamer's personal fan club in the corner of the ground.

Adams limped off shortly afterwards nursing his right calf, but Sussex had included five specialist bowlers in a more balanced side so there was never much chance of Essex being able to plunder part-time trundlers.

Nevertheless Kirtley, who assumed the captaincy, was happy to end Grayson and Foster's fifth wicket frolic which had yielded 85 runs in 18 overs when the acting captain brought himself back into the attack and promptly bowled Grayson for 52 made off 64 balls.

Cowan's failure to ground his bat cost him his wicket in the next over when he was beaten by Lewry's throw and at 137-6 Essex seemed to be expiring quietly.

But Anderson appeared intent to make up for his earlier abberations, swinging his broad shoulders to good effect as he put on 51 in seven overs for the seventh wicket with Foster.

He was dropped twice in making a rapid 22, firstly by House on the square leg boundary and then by Goodwin running around from mid-wicket, but the Zimbabwean made amends two balls later when he ran him out with a direct hit.

Foster had been in for 26 overs when he scored his first boundary, but the tall wicketkeeper-batsman, who is being talked about as a future England player, went to his 50 in the penultimate over off 76 balls with two fours, but by then the outcome was not in doubt.