Flintoff hurries Lancashire home

Andrew Flintoff swats the ball through the off side in his crucial unbeaten 62

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Andrew Flintoff’s luck changed as he led Lancashire to their second LV County Championship win of the season.

A typically swashbuckling innings of 62 not out sealed an eight-wicket triumph over champions Sussex at Hove, after he had endured a frustrating time with the ball.

The charismatic all-rounder, playing his first championship game after a six-week lay-off with a side strain, boosted his confidence with a first half-century since May 9 last year.

Flintoff, who went into the game on the back of three successive ducks, looked fit when bowling 34 lively, if wicketless, overs in the match.

And, having batted eight in the first innings, he came in at the fall of the second wicket on the final day as the visitors chased a victory target of 107 in between the showers.

Aggressive from the start, he reached his half-century off just 55 balls in little more than an hour, clouting two sixes and six fours before hitting the winning runs through midwicket.

Flintoff had survived a confident appeal for caught behind off Corey Collymore when he had made just two, and Carl Hopkinson dropped him in the slips on 18 before his fifty came up with an inside edge for three.

The weather, however, always looked to be the only threat to Lancashire’s success - which lifted them to second in Division One.

They needed just 93 runs for victory in reaching 14 for one at lunch, having claimed four cheap wickets this morning to bowl Sussex out for 245.

Mushtaq Ahmed has his stumps rearranged by Glen Chapple, who returned figures of 6-58

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But unless the weather intervened it was a near-impossible task for faltering Sussex to avoid a second consecutive Championship defeat at Hove - after nearly four years without one.

The hosts, who took just five points from the contest, were 84 ahead overnight and added only 13 runs for their last four wickets on the final day as Glen Chapple and Sajid Mahmood ran through the tail.

Chapple finished with 6-58, while Mahmood, who took five wickets in the first innings, returned figures of 3-51.

Sussex had little hope of staving off defeat after Murray Goodwin was brilliantly caught down the leg side by Luke Sutton after adding three to his overnight 77, the wicketkeeper redeeming himself for putting down a sharp chance off the previous ball.

The dismissal had a domino effect. Ollie Rayner steered Mahmood to Lou Vincent at gully, Chapple bowled Mushtaq Ahmed for a duck and Jason Lewry lost his leg stump to Mahmood in the next over.

After a half-hour delay Vincent was dropped by the luckless Hopkinson, but he had made only five when caught behind off Lewry.

Mal Loye gave Lewry a second victim before Flintoff’s arrival, and, after Collymore’s appeal was turned down, the result never looked in doubt.