County Championship: Sussex bowlers skittle Gloucestershire on day one

Jaydev Unadkat claimed four wickets as Sussex took another step towards the County Championship Division Two title with a dominant opening day against Gloucestershire.

The runaway leaders bowled out the home side for 109, left-arm seamer Unadkat finishing with 4-32 while Ollie Robinson and Tom Clark claimed three wickets each.

Sussex reached 149-4 in reply, Tom Haines making 40, Tom Alsop 37 and James Coles 36 not out.

Three days after winning the T20 Blast, Gloucestershire were on the back foot from the third ball when Joe Phillips edged Unadkat to wicketkeeper John Simpson. Chris Dent soon followed, snapped up at second slip by Clark off Robinson to make it 4-2.

Miles Hammond hit Henry Crocombe for six in moving to 22 before miscuing a catch to mid-on off Unadkat, who struck again with the total on 46 as James Bracey edged to third slip.

Graeme van Buuren was caught behind aiming a pull shot off Clark and Ollie Price (11) fell to a similar shot, a thicker top edge that gave Unadkat his fourth wicket and left the lunch score at 68-6.

That became 89-8 when Robinson bowled Zafar Gohar and had Zaman Akhter caught behind.

When Clark dismissed Tom Price via a spectacular diving slip catch by Alsop and last man Dom Goodman caught at mid-wicket, Gloucestershire had been bowled out in just 43.4 overs. Clark finished with 3-17 and Robinson 3-33.

Openers Haines and Oli Carter took Sussex to 27 before the latter was caught behind off Akhter. Clark aimed to hit Ollie Price over the top off the third ball of the evening and holed out to mid-on for 21.

Haines was dropped by Ollie Price and had another narrow escape when Phillips just failed to cling on to a brilliant one-handed catch at short leg, but soon edged Goodman to second slip where Price this time made no mistake.

Coles reverse-swept Gohar for four to put Sussex in front at 111-3 before hitting three successive boundaries in a Tom Price over to bring up a half-century stand with Alsop, who played solidly until tamely cutting Ollie Price straight to Gohar at backward point.

Report supplied by ECB Reporters’ Network.