Sussex 201 and 114 for 2 (Wells 53*) require a further 400 to beat Durham 301 and 413 (Muchall 115, Hastings 91, Magoffin 5-89)
Scorecard
Winning the County Championship requires ruthlessness in addition to skill, enterprise and a host of other qualities. Sometimes, a team's chances of victory are increased if they grind their opponents into the dirt and break their spirit. Yet as Gordon Muchall, Paul Coughlin and John Hastings filled their boots on the third day of this match at Arundel, many observers, whether within or without the sylvan bowl, still wondered why Paul Collingwood did not declare.
Inside ten overs of the morning session, it had become clear that Sussex would have to score the highest total of the match in order to win it, and this on a pitch of variable bounce where Chris Rushworth had made hay on Tuesday. On that evidence, this was a wicket that the Durham seamers would happily carry around the country with them. What's more, the Sussex batsmen might help them load it onto the truck.
Yet Collingwood did not beckon his batsmen back to the pavilion; he left them to be bowled out for 413. Sussex were therefore presented with a victory target of 514, which is 59 runs more than they have managed in their 151-year history. They had a minimum of 139 overs in which to make set a new mark but even Joe Root might baulk before claiming that all his gun barrels would be blazing in such a situation.
The Durham skipper's decision was perhaps based on the evidence that the pitch was slowing and that a target in excess of 500 would overawe a batting side which had not managed to score more than 266 in any of their last nine innings. Rushworth, Onions & Co. still had more than enough overs in which to take ten wickets and they would have two new balls with which to go to work.
By close of play Collingwood's judgement had been justified. Unlike the first innings, Ed Joyce's batsman had not been swept away as easily as leaves on a dry autumn pavement. The Sussex openers, Luke Wells and Michael Yardy, added 60 for the first wicket, which is still their county's highest opening stand of the season, before Yardy played a millionaire's drive to a ball from Coughlin and nicked a pauper's catch to Richardson. Thirteen overs later, the keeper had his second victim when Matt Machan was properly beaten by a good ball from Hastings.
That was the final wicket to fall on the third day. Luke Wells, batting watchfully and rather astutely within himself, passed fifty for the second time this season and Joyce, who has not made a half-century for nearly two months, remained unbeaten on 5 at the close. There is plenty of labour ahead for Durham's bowlers on the final day of this match if they are to secure a win in their final four-day contest before their vital meeting with Yorkshire at the Riverside in 11 days' time. There is still a game on.
But whatever awaits the cricketers in the final acts of his curious drama, this week at Arundel will surely be one of the highlights of Muchall's career. Having made an unbeaten 81 in the first innings, the Durham No. 6 made his first century of the season off 215 balls in the second; he had batted for 282 minutes for 115 runs when he was lbw attempting to cut Wells five overs before lunch. In all, Muchall occupied the crease for over eight hours in a match where five top-six batsmen have not lasted ten minutes. Should Durham win, his 196 runs for once out will have played as significant a role in the victory as anything Rushworth or Onions might do on the last day.
Muchall's innings was epitomised not by a series of memorable shots but by the hundreds of good decisions he made. Sometimes these consisted of nothing more than opting to leave the ball alone but they enabled the Durham batsman to seize on any opportunities to attack. He added 116 for the seventh wicket with Coughlin, who himself contributed a fine 64 before he edged Steve Magoffin to Joyce at slip just after lunch.
By then Hastings was fully engaged in taking the game away from Sussex by blasting 91 off 72 balls and playing the sort of bullying thrash which Muchall's diligence had made possible. Time and again the Australian whacked George Dockrell into the rows of pastel-clothed spectators on the banks at the Park End; and only when it had become almost probable that he would score a maiden first-class century was Hastings bowled, playing an outstandingly ugly heave to a ball from Tim Linley, who added three wickets to his five in the first innings.
Hastings was the last man out and his departure left Sussex with all manner of records to set if they were to win or even draw a game in which 14 wickets had fallen on the second day but only six on the third. They need exactly 400 more runs. Even in this place of glories and wonders, that would be something to see.
