Sussex played like an 'international team'
Will Luke
25-Feb-2013
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Sussex, who lifted the Championship trophy on Saturday in a thrilling finale to the 2007 season, played and behaved “in the manner of a convincing international team” according to Mark Nicholas in the The Daily Telegraph.
The lion's share of this credit must go to Chris Adams, a brilliant man and fine leader. I wonder how often he and Yorkshire wonder about destiny, for last winter he had all but signed the papers that would take him from Hove to Headingley. It will irk him to have let them down but his instinct was right to stay put.
Doubtless, there is more to this than meets the eye but on the surface it has a satisfactory feel. Yorkshire have been superbly led by a Yorkshireman, albeit one who hobbles a bit these days, and Darren Gough's infectious enthusiasm should have long-term benefits. Sussex have their adopted son Adams, once of Derbyshire, to ride roughshod over doubters and continue the winning culture that is so much of his own making. Of course, they are lucky with Mushtaq Ahmed but many a county has had golden overseas players and failed to motivate them so productively or, indeed, to build a side around them with such effect.
Meanwhile in The Times, Christopher Martin-Jenkins also singles out Adams for praise.
A brilliant left-handed catch by Adams off Naved to dismiss Stuart Law at Liverpool on the second day of August was probably the single most important moment of Sussex’s season. It came early in a compelling performance by the bowlers in the fourth innings on a ground where Lancashire had beaten them last year. The long Lancashire drought - 73 years and counting since the last outright title – would surely have ended had they won that match but, in the end, it was Durham who matched Sussex for the number of games won, seven, and who deservedly finished as runners-up in a season in which they also won the Friends Provident Trophy and gained promotion from the second division of the NatWest Pro40.
In The Guardian Vic Marks insists Mushtaq Ahmed has been absolutely instrumental (again):
The Sussex philosophy has been on the lines of 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it'. So Mushtaq bowls and bowls, but the rest know their parts and the personnel around him changes steadily. For example, Andy Hodd behind the stumps has meant that Matt Prior's absence has barely been a factor.
But Mushtaq has been the key yet again. He is easily the most prolific leg-spinner in county cricket, even with Shane Warne in the contest. Is it his well-disguised googly or his renewed devotion as a Muslim? 'My life was not disciplined when I started playing for Somerset [in the nineties]. I was living a western life. I wasn't praying. I wasn't reading the Koran'. And his form fell away. Sussex remain the grateful beneficiaries of his renewal.
Will Luke is assistant editor of ESPNcricinfo