Sussex County Cricket Club

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Sussex County Cricket Club is the oldest of eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Sussex. Its limited overs team is called the Sussex Sharks. The club was founded in 1839 as a successor to the various Sussex county cricket team (pre-1839), including the old Brighton Cricket Club, which had been representative of the county of Sussex as a whole since the 1720s. The club has always held first-class status. Sussex have competed in the County Championship since the official start of the competition in 1890 and have played in every top-level domestic cricket competition in England.

The club colours are traditionally blue and white and the shirt sponsors are Galloways Accounting for the LV County Championship and Dafabet for Royal London One-Day Cup matches and Vitality Blast T20 matches. Its home ground is the County Cricket Ground, Hove. Sussex also play matches around the county at Arundel, Eastbourne and Horsham.

Sussex won its first official County Championship title in 2003 and subsequently became the dominant team of the decade, repeating the success in 2006 and 2007. In 2006 Sussex achieved ‘the double’, beating Lancashire to clinch the C&G Trophy, before winning the County Championship following an emphatic victory against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge, in which Sussex defeated their hosts by an innings and 245 runs. Sussex then won the title for the third time in five years in 2007, when in a nail-biting finale on the last day of the season, Sussex defeated Worcestershire early in the day and then had to wait until past five o'clock as title rivals Lancashire narrowly failed to beat Surrey – prompting relieved celebrations at the County Cricket Ground, Hove. Sussex enjoyed further limited overs success with consecutive Pro40 wins in 2008 and 2009 as well as beating Somerset at Edgbaston to lift the 2009 Twenty20 Cup. The south coast county ended the decade having won ten trophies in ten years.

On 1 November 2015, Sussex County Cricket Club (SCCC) merged with the Sussex Cricket Board (SCB) to form a single governing body for cricket in Sussex, called Sussex Cricket Limited (SCL).

Honours

thumb|220px|Sussex field against Derbyshire at Hove on 24 April 2005

First XI honours

County Championship (3) – 2003, 2006, 2007
Pro40 National League (3) – 1982, 2008, 2009

Second XI honours

Second XI Championship (3) – 1978, 1990, 2007
Second XI Trophy (1) – 2005

Notes

Earliest cricket

thumb|220px|The Arthur Gilligan stand at Hove

Sussex, along with Kent, is believed to be the birthplace of cricket. It is believed that cricket was invented by children living on the Weald in Anglo-Saxon or Norman times.

The first definite mention of cricket in Sussex relates to ecclesiastical court records in 1611 which state that two parishioners of Sidlesham in West Sussex failed to attend church on Easter Sunday because they were playing cricket. They were fined 12d each and made to do penance.

Cricket became established in Sussex during the 17th century and the earliest village matches took place before the English Civil War. It is believed that the earliest county teams were formed in the aftermath of the Restoration in 1660. In 1697, the earliest "great match" recorded was for 50 guineas apiece between two elevens at a venue in Sussex.

Matches involving the two great Sussex patrons Charles Lennox, 2nd Duke of Richmond and Sir William Gage, 7th Baronet were first recorded in 1725. The earliest known use of Sussex in a match title occurred in 1729. From 1741, Richmond patronised the famous Slindon Cricket Club, whose team was representative of the county.

After the death of Richmond in 1751, Sussex cricket declined until the emergence of the Brighton club at its Prince of Wales Ground in 1790. This club sustained cricket in Sussex through the Napoleonic Wars and, as a result, the county team was very strong in the 1820s when it included the great bowlers Jem Broadbridge and William Lillywhite.

Origin of club

thumb|220px|The Pavilion at Hove

On 17 June 1836, the Sussex Cricket Fund was set up to support county matches, after a meeting in Brighton. This led directly to the formation of Sussex County Cricket Club on 1 March 1839, England's oldest county club. The side played its initial first-class match against MCC at Lord's in June 1839.

Currently, the main venue for the club's First and Second XI is The County Ground in Hove, although matches are also played regularly at the grounds at Arundel and Horsham. Other grounds for first class matches have included Sheffield Park, Chichester, Worthing, Eastbourne and Hastings. Updated: 15 March 2026

Coaching staff

Head coach/Director of Cricket: Paul Farbrace
Batting coach: Grant Flower
Bowling coach: James Kirtley

Notable Sussex players

This list includes those Sussex players who have played in Test cricket since 1877, One Day International cricket since 1971, or have made an outstanding contribution (e.g.: scoring most runs or taking most wickets in a season).

Afghanistan

Rashid Khan

Australia

Jason Behrendorff
Michael Bevan
Alex Carey
Michael Di Venuto
Tony Dodemaide
Ryan Harris
Travis Head
Steve Magoffin
Josh Philippe
Steve Smith
Jason Voros

Bangladesh

Mustafizur Rahman

Bermuda

Delray Rawlins

England

Chris Adams
Tim Ambrose
Jofra Archer
Ravi Bopara
Ted Bowley
Danny Briggs
Jem Broadbridge
Harry Butt
Henry Charlwood
George Cox senior
Mason Crane
Jemmy Dean
Ted Dexter
Kumar Shri Duleepsinhji
Steven Finn
C. B. Fry
George Garton
Ed Giddins
Tony Greig
Chris Jordan
James Kirtley
James Langridge
John Langridge
Jason Lewry
William Lillywhite
Robin Martin-Jenkins
Stuart Meaker
Tymal Mills
Richard Montgomerie
Peter Moores
Alan Oakman
Monty Panesar
Paul Parker
Jim Parks, Jr.
Jim Parks, Sr.
Tony Pigott
Matt Prior
K S Ranjitsinhji
Rajesh Rao
Dermot Reeve
Albert Relf
Ollie Robinson
Ian Salisbury
Phil Salt
Ajmal Shahzad
David Sheppard
John Simpson
John Snow
Martin Speight
Ken Suttle
Maurice Tate
Ian Thomson
Joe Vine
Alan Wells
Colin Wells
John Wisden
Luke Wright
Michael Yardy

England / Sri Lanka

Gehan Mendis

Greece

Aristides Karvelas

India

Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi
Piyush Chawla
Cheteshwar Pujara
Ishant Sharma
Jaydev Unadkat

Ireland

George Dockrell
Ed Joyce

Italy

Grant Stewart

Namibia

David Wiese

Netherlands

Zach Lion-Cachet
Michael Rippon
Bas Zuiderent

New Zealand

Tom Bruce
Brendon McCullum
Tim Seifert
Henry Shipley
Scott Styris
Ross Taylor
Lou Vincent

Pakistan

Mushtaq Ahmed
Mohammad Akram
Yasir Arafat
Naved Arif
Faheem Ashraf
Umar Gul
Mir Hamza
Imran Khan
Javed Miandad
Saqlain Mushtaq
Rana Naved-ul-Hasan
Mohammad Rizwan
Mohammed Sami
Ashar Zaidi

Scotland

Brad Currie
Matt Machan
Calum MacLeod
Charlie Tear
Stuart Whittingham

South Africa

Peter Kirsten
Garth Le Roux
Wayne Parnell
Vernon Philander
Johannes van der Wath
Kirk Wernars
Kepler Wessels
Stiaan van Zyl

Sri Lanka

Mahela Jayawardene
Nuwan Kulasekara

West Indies

Corey Collymore
Vasbert Drakes
Obed McCoy
Dwayne Smith
Franklyn Stephenson
Jerome Taylor

Zimbabwe

Murray Goodwin

Records

Most first-class runs for Sussex <br />

Qualification – 20,000 runs

{| class="wikitable"

! Player!!Runs

|John Langridge|| 34,150

|Ken Suttle|| 29,375

|Jim Parks junior|| 29,138

|James Langridge || 28,894

|Ted Bowley || 25,439

|Joseph Vine|| 24,120

|George Cox junior|| 22,687

|Henry Parks || 21,692

|Charles Fry|| 20,626

|Thomas Cook|| 20,176

|Alan Oakman || 20,117

!colspan=2 | Source:

Most first-class wickets for Sussex <br />

Qualification – 1,000 wickets

{| class="wikitable"

! Player!!Wickets

|Maurice Tate|| 2,211

|George Cox senior|| 1,810

|Albert Relf|| 1,594

|Ian Thomson || 1,527

|James Langridge || 1,416

|Fred Tate || 1,306

|Albert Wensley || 1,067

|Jim Cornford || 1,019

!colspan=2 | Source:

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200px|right|thumb|[[KS Ranjitsinhji scored 18594 runs and made 58 centuries for Sussex]]-->

Team

Highest total for – 742/5d v. Somerset, Taunton, 2009
Highest total against – 737 by Glamorgan, Hove 2023
Lowest total for – 19 v. Surrey, Godalming, 1830, v. Nottinghamshire, Hove, 1873
Lowest total against – 18 by Kent, Gravesend, 1867

Batting

Highest score – 344* Murray Goodwin v. Somerset, Taunton, 2009
Most runs in season – 2,850 J. G. Langridge, 1949

Highest partnership for each wicket

1st – 490 Ted Bowley and John Langridge v. Middlesex, Hove, 1933
2nd – 385 Ted Bowley and Maurice Tate v. Northamptonshire, Hove, 1921
3rd – 385* Michael Yardy and Murray Goodwin v. Warwickshire, Hove, 2006
4th – 363 Murray Goodwin and Carl Hopkinson v. Somerset, Taunton, 2009

Source:

Bowling

Best bowling – 10–48 C. H. G Bland v. Kent, Tonbridge, 1899
Best match bowling – 17–106 G. R. Cox v. Warwickshire, Horsham, 1926
Wickets in season – 198 M. W. Tate, 1925

Mascots

The main mascot of Sussex County Cricket Club is "Sid the Shark", an anthropomorphised animal that makes reference to the "Sussex Sharks" name. A female version, Sandy the Shark, has also appeared as a mascot.

Explanatory notes

Citations

External links

Official site