Despite a heroic effort by the Durham attack to defend 93, Sussex claimed a nail biting win by two wickets at Arundel
Durham resumed play on 80-7 on day four at Arundel looking to post a target of 120 for Sussex in their final innings.
Sussex made the early breakthrough they needed, when Paul Collingwood was out lbw to Wernars without adding to his overnight total of 29.
Durham were 84-9 after Steve Magoffin claimed his fifth wicket of the innings when Callum Thorp (12) was trapped lbw the following over.
Durham were dismissed for 93 after Magoffin removed Mitchell Claydon’s (4) middle stump 25 minutes into the morning’s proceedings.
With 94 their total for the win, Sussex suffered a set back in the first over when Chris Rushworth struck with his sixth delivery, trapping Luke Wells lbw before the hosts had a run on the board.
Thorp struck in the sixth and eighth over reducing Sussex to 22-3, with Joe Gatting (6) caught in the slips by Scott Borthwick and Luke Wells bowled for 13.
Confusion in the middle by the batsmen saw Michael Yardy run out on 4 by Thorp as Sussex fell to 27-4.
By lunch Sussex were 41-5 with the game was evenly poised after Rushworth had bowled Wright for 18 prior to the break.
The cracking effort by Rushworth and Thorp continued in the second session with each of them claiming an lbw decision, dismissing Brown (8) and Goodwin (15) respectively with the hosts 50-7.
A 23 run partnership between Magoffin and Wernas was eventually broken by Thorp when the latter was caught behind with four runs to his name.
An unbeaten 23 from Magoffin and 15 from James Anyon saw Sussex across the line, to claim the win by two wickets.
At the close of play Head Coach Geoff Cook said, “The finish was tremendous and was a great advert for the game but when you’re within the team you always want to be on the right side of those games. You couldn’t ask any more from the team once the batting was finished, out there on the field the efforts of Rushworth and Thorp were paramount in giving us a chance but generally the belief that the team had, in terms of being able to defend such a small total was fantastic.
“It was a low scoring game, this season we’ve played on lots of wickets that have been helpful to bowlers and this have been no different and obviously we would have liked to get a few more runs this morning. Our second innings total was disappointing but we have to put that to one side and think that we nearly won a game that was going to be difficult to win and we have to take the positives from that.”