“Good Old Sussex By the Sea
Good Old Sussex By the Sea
And we’re going up to win the cup
For Sussex by the Sea”
Along with Kent, the Sussex region of England can also claim to be the birthplace of the sport – invented in the area by the Normans in the 13th Century. The club as we know it today was formed in 1839…
…but the county did not win a First Division County Championship until 2003…a period of 164 years. The Chicago Cubs have nothing on long suffering Sharks’ fans.
The club did win several lesser cups in that period of course, so it is not really an apples to apples situation. But holy crap 164 years!!??
(Side note: the Pro40 County One-Day competition used to known as “The Sunday League.” That is so brilliant it makes me cry a little.)
Sussex play matches at grounds throughout the county, but their official home ground is the County Cricket Ground, aka the Probiz Ground, in Hove, England.
“Hove” as it is affectionately known, has been home to Sussex CCC since 1872. It has a capacity of 7,000 and has hosted one ODI: India v South Africa in 1999.
Over their long history, Sussex has employed many memorable players. John Landridge, whom Wisden called “the greatest cricketer to never play a test match,” starred for the club from 1928 until 1955. He accumulated over 34,000 runs for the county in his time there, the most by any Sussex cricketer in the club’s history. Also, John’s brother, James, who did play in eight tests for England – played for Sussex at the same time – taking 1,416 wickets, the fifth most in the county’s history (the great Maurice Tate took the most, with 2211.)
Another bit of trivia regarding the Landridge brothers: in 1938 the two brothers player with two other sets of brothers: Charlie and John Oaks and Harry and Jim Parks.
Currently, thanks to England regulars Matt Prior, Monty Panesar, and Michael Yardy, as well as internationals such as Murray Goodwin and Ed Joyce, Sussex has enjoyed a nice run of success. They had to wait 164 years for their first County Championship, but only three years for the 2nd, and then they won it a third time the very next year. The drought surely is well and truly over for Sussex .
Celebrity fans? Still nothing. However, Sampson Collins, he of the “The Two Chucks,” wrote the history of Sussex CCC for Cricinfo…so, um, that’s something.
And that, in 374 words (and counting) is Sussex. (Sam’s history was way better, so I am not going to link to it.)
As always, my sources include Wikipedia, SussexCricket.co.ok, as well as Cricinfo.
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Back on the pitch: in Johannesburg it is stumps on day four. Australia will bat tomorrow needing 173 with seven wickets remaining. The way the Aussie’s have collapsed in this short series, I think this might be South Africa’s match to lose.
Meanwhile, there is a thriller of an ODI happening at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium in the U.A.E:
Sri Lanka are 157/5 chasing Pakistan’s 200. Their current run rate is 4.04 and their required run rate is 3.97. Like I said: a thriller.
Finally, I inserted the above photo for two reasons:
1) I love photos of cricket stadiums. Love, love, love.
2) If the current internet copyright legislation that is being discreetly and dangerously rushed through Congress is passed into law, this blog could be shut down permanently and I could be fined thousands of dollars…just for posting a copyrighted image on a blog nobody reads. Heck, even if a reader (stop laughing) posted a link to copyrighted material in the comments section of this blog, I could be shut down forever with no access to my site, my writing, my archives. Scary, huh? This is worse than net neutrality, this is the death of the Internet.
So do me a favor, if you live in the U.S., read this, and this, call your congressmen and congresswomen, sigh the online petition, and let’s save the fucking Internet, okay?
Limited Overs 