Sussex incensed by Pringle reprieve

Sussex 43 for 1 trail Durham 287 (Coughlin 73, Pringle 60, Archer 5-76) by 244 runs
Scorecard

Just before half past four on a somnolent afternoon, the sun was blazing down at Hove, the seagulls were cawing, and spectators could be spied lounging in their deckchairs contentedly indulging in a nap. Even some of those watching the cricket seemed almost as preoccupied with the final day of the Premier League as the game being played out in front of them, in which Paul Coughlin and Ryan Pringle were unobtrusively rebuilding Durham's innings.

All of this changed when Pringle received a delivery from Chris Jordan on his legs. He shaped to flick it, and made good contact; perhaps too good, for the ball sped in the air towards fine leg. Running in, David Wiese dived and looked to have taken an excellent clean catch, with both his hands cupped safely underneath the ball. All of Sussex's players were convinced as much - but not the umpires who, after conferring, decided that the ball had bounced before being taken by Wiese.

"If you get hit on the leg you're not going to walk off for an lbw. It's the umpires' decision at the end of the day," Pringle said, with the sense of a man aware of times when the cricket establishment has treated Durham less kindly. "I wasn't trying to influence the umpires' decision - which maybe a couple of their players thought I had done - by insinuating he hadn't caught it by standing my ground."

Pringle, then, remained unmoved, and calmly took his place at the non-striker's end, having taken a single. As he did so Sussex's fielders were palpably disgruntled; some in the crowd bellowed "cheat" at the batsman, and those near Wiese applauded him as vigorously - more so, out of their sense of injustice - as if his action had led to a wicket.

When, two overs later, a short ball from Jordan elicited a top edge from Pringle and a wicketkeeper's catch that no one could dispute, he was met with stony silence by the crowd - and "a few verbals" from Sussex's fielders - as he walked off for 60.

"You are disappointed. You're in the heat of the contest and it was a very important wicket. It does influence the game," Mark Davis, Sussex's head coach, said although he understood Pringle's stance. "I don't think it was the batter's fault at all."

If Sussex's players thought rather less of Pringle than they had at the start of the day, Durham probably thought rather more of him and Coughlin, who added 110 for the sixth wicket. Neither played with any great elan, but they batted with purpose, grit and common sense to haul Durham out of a precarious position, belying mediocre first-class averages in the mid-20s. Coughlin excelled driving the ball through the covers; Pringle, his mid-afternoon escape apart, was particularly effective off his legs.

How Durham needed their resolve. At 72 for 1, they had reason to applaud themselves on a fine morning's work, notwithstanding Keaton Jennings losing his offstump to Jofra Archer's extra pace. All of this was undone in 21 frenetic balls. The becalmed Cameron Steel clipped Vernon Philander to square leg - the South African's first wicket for his fifth county. Philander then snared Stephen Cook, who had played with poise and driven pleasingly through the off side, lbw.

When Archer, gallivanting up the hill with great oomph, accounted for Paul Collingwood lbw with the final ball of the session, Sussex took lunch in a state of buoyancy. After Graham Clark took a tentative half-stride forward to Danny Briggs' first ball and missed, Durham had slipped to 129 for 5 soon after, a position in no way befitting the batting conditions.

If Coughlin and Pringle ensured that Durham hauled themselves up to a respectable score, Archer ensured that it still felt under par. In ten deliveries with the second new ball, he eviscerated what remained of Durham's batting: Coughlin slashed to third man; Graham Onions, who had almost been yorked, flashed an away-swinger behind; Chris Rushworth did the same.

Therefore Archer, who bowled with unstinting venom even if his radar was a touch inconsistent, had his second five-fer in two Championship games at Hove this season. Ever sprightly, he leapt up the stairs while the crowd saluted his sterling day's work. His captain could feel vindicated for inserting Durham - even if the brutish delivery with which Onions dismissed Harry Finch first ball spoke of Sussex's challenge ahead.

But Luke Wright would also have ended the day ruing the slapdash fielding that saw Sussex drop four catches. Pringle was reprieved on 22, a tricky chance to wicketkeeper Michael Burgess off Danny Briggs; Coughlin had 44 when Archer, appearing to misjudge the ball, spilled a catch on the fine leg boundary.

Perhaps most frustrating were the two chances Chris Nash spilled at second slip, both routine by the standards of the position. On both occasions, Jordan elicited the outside edge - from Cook, on 30, and Stuart Poynter, on 4 - and must have wished that he could field in the slips to his own bowling.

He might also have felt overdue a little fortune. Jordan was returning from seven weeks at the IPL, where he only faced one ball, and bowled six, in his entire stint for Sunrisers Hyderabad.