LANCASHIRE seamer Glen Chapple marked his return to championship cricket with a four-wicket haul at Hove yesterday as Lancashire’s bowlers sought to force a victory against Sussex and climb up the tightly-packed County Championship Division One table.

The 34-year-old was given solid support by the rest of Stuart Law’s five-man attack and, given a few hours good weather, Lancashire have a fine opportunity to collect their second win of the season.

It may, though, quite literally, rain on the Old Trafford parade. After three days of blue skies, deck-chairs, retired colonels and overfed seagulls – all the endearing paraphernalia of a classic English seaside summer in fact – the forecast is poor from around lunchtime today.

Law’s men may therefore regret their inability to separate the seventh-wicket pair of Murray Goodwin and Ollie Rayner in 15 overs before the close when the Sussex lead of 84 was already far from trivial.

If Lancashire do inflict the second successive home defeat on the reigning champions, it will principally be the result of the type of unremitting application personified by the club captain.

Law’s monumental 158 not out in 399 minutes was substantially responsible for the Old Trafford side going into the second half of this match with a 139-run first innings lead, but any hopes that the home batting would capitulate as meekly as it had done on Sunday were dispelled by the patience of the Zimbabwean middle-order batsman Murray Goodwin who will resume on 77 this morning.

The best and hungriest batsman in Chris Adams’s side brought up his 10,000 runs for Sussex and has already batted 209 minutes as he seeks his third century against Lancashire. As ever, his technique looks sound, and while he is at the crease, the game is not won.

The first session yesterday established the attritional tempo of the day. Lancashire lost their last two wickets for the addition of only 10 runs and then had to be content with the wicket of Chris Nash, well caught by fifth slip Steven Croft off the bowling of Sajid Mahmood for 20, as Sussex proceeded carefully to 59 for one in 25 overs at lunch.

Yet Lancashire’s players were clearly aggrieved that third umpire Richard Illingworth didn’t uphold Paul Horton’s confident appeal for a slip catch against Adams off Andrew Flintoff whose 19 overs from the Sea end yesterday were again hostile, unlucky and wicketless.

The afternoon session brought three further successes for the Old Trafford side, two of them the work of Chapple, who was playing his first championship game since late April. The Skipton-born bowler caught the edge of Michael Yardy’s bat when the left-hander attempted an indeterminate waft outside on the off side, and two overs later he bowled Adams when the skipper could only deflect the ball onto the leg stump.

Matt Prior’s bright innings was nearly curtailed on 12 when a direct hit by Croft from backward square-leg just failed to beat the batsman’s lunge but the wicket-keeper batsman’s luck ran out when he was adjudged lbw to leg-spinner Francois du Plessis even though his front leg was well down the track.

Hopes of an early finish were further raised in the middle of the evening session when Chapple trapped Carl Hopkinson in front and then had Robin Martin-Jenkins magnificently caught by a diving Croft at backward point.

Flintoff, for one, seemed dead keen to ram home the hard-earned advantage and he twice struck Ollie Rayner on the helmet in a fiery third spell although maybe the fact that Rayner had dismissed him on Monday had something to do with it as well.

The session ended, though, with the batsmen displaying watchful defence, and this was only appropriate: cricket may often be associated with galvanic action but yesterday’s play proved that it can also require its practitioners to display the perseverance and patience of fly-fishermen.

TODAY (11.00 unless stated) Asia Cup Phase Two (1 day) Karachi: Pakistan v India Triangular Tournament (1 day) Aberdeen: Scotland v Ireland (10.45) LV County Championship Division One (day 4 of 4) The Rose Bowl: Hampshire v Nottinghamshire The Brit Oval: Surrey v Kent Hove: Sussex v Lancashire Headingley Carnegie: Yorkshire v Durham Division Two (day 4 of 4) Chelmsford: Essex v Derbyshire Grace Road: Leicestershire v Worcestershire Uxbridge: Middlesex v Northamptonshire Edgbaston: Warwickshire v Gloucestershire Varsity Match (day 2 of 4) The Parks: Oxford University v Cambridge University