{"id":773059,"date":"2026-09-17T00:30:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T00:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/773059\/"},"modified":"2026-09-17T00:30:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T00:30:14","slug":"county-championship-tom-clark-hits-89-to-put-sussex-on-top-against-nottinghamshire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/773059\/","title":{"rendered":"County Championship: Tom Clark hits 89 to put Sussex on top against Nottinghamshire"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Rothesay County Championship, Division One, County Ground, Hove (day two)<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Nottinghamshire 240: Hutton 60; Unadkat 4-83<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Sussex 308-6: Clark 89, Price 56*; Hutton 2-53, Stone 2-61<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Sussex (5 pts) lead Nottinghamshire (2 pts) by 68 runs<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/cricket\/scorecard\/e-233574\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Match scorecard<\/a>   <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Tom Clark&#8217;s 89 and fifties from Charlie Tear and Tom Price frustrated title-chasing Nottinghamshire on the second day at Hove.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">After Notts had been dismissed for 240 it was Sussex who picked up the only batting point so far in this round of Division One matches as they responded with 308-6, thanks in the main to a century stand for the third wicket between Clark and Tear, plus Price&#8217;s unbeaten 56.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">For Notts, it was a frustrating day. While title rivals Warwickshire were beating Essex in two days at Chelmsford and Somerset made progress in their game against Yorkshire, they have only picked up two bonus points so far.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">And Sussex could have been in an even better position had there not been a few soft dismissals in their top order.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Clark gave away his wicket on 89 when he slashed at a long hop well outside off stump from Brett Hutton and looked mortified as the ball crashed into his stumps off a thick inside edge, but the left-hander&#8217;s excellent stand of 132 in 33 overs with Tear helped shape the day. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Pitches at Hove tend to be at their best for batting on days two and three and they have given themselves the opportunity to build a decent lead and put the champions under pressure.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Replying to 240, Sussex openers Tom Haines and George Thomas made a solid start and Haines was soon into his stride with successive fours through the covers off Indian seamer Mukesh Kumar.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But the Sussex captain was guilty of a preventable dismissal when he flicked a length ball from Olly Stone to mid-wicket where Ben Slater held a good diving catch.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It was 35-2 when Thomas played all around a straight one from Tom Giles which swung a touch, but for the next 33 overs Clark and Tear prospered.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Tear took successive boundaries off Stone to bring up the century partnership and Clark nonchalantly flicked Giles off his legs for a six to take him to his fifth fifty of an injury-ravaged season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Tear drove Kumar through the covers to raise the hundred stand and while he was content to soak up pressure at one end, Clark continued to attack fluently, hitting 11 fours.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But with a century there for the taking he gave it away somewhat and when Oli Carter was also out cheaply, flicking Stone to mid-wicket, Nottinghamshire sensed an opportunity.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Tear spent 20 minutes on 49 before taking a single off Liam Patterson-White to reach his second successive Championship fifty after lodging a career-best 89 against Surrey last week.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But almost immediately he was bowled by a superb delivery by the left-arm spinner which turned sharply from a leg-stump line to hit middle and off.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Sussex still trailed by 42 at that stage but John Simpson and Price steadied things down, although wicketkeeper Mitch Hay missed a stumping chance which reprieved Simpson on 31 off Patterson-White when Sussex were still in arrears.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The lead was 18 and the sixth-wicket stand worth 60 when Hutton went wide of the crease to angle one through Simpson&#8217;s defences but Price progressed to his fifty and took his side past 300 &#8211; and a second batting point &#8211; with successive boundaries as he and Jack Carson saw Sussex through to stumps, although Carson was badly missed by Hay on 27.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">ECB Reporters&#8217; Network supported by Rothesay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rothesay County Championship, Division One, County Ground, Hove (day two) Nottinghamshire 240: Hutton 60; Unadkat 4-83 Sussex 308-6:&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":773060,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-773059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-cricket","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=773059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773059\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/773060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=773059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=773059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=773059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}