11.10am Morning, writes Andy Bull at Hove, and a glorious one it is too. However ominous the little symbols on the weather forecast might be, right now it's wonderful weather here. For the first time this season I actually feel like there's no place I'd rather be than here at a county ground. The locals must have known we'd be getting play, as the ground just had a different feel about it; the carvery van has its flaps up and a pork joint on the go, the shifty-looking second-hand book-seller is unpacking his crates of old Wisdens, and there's a long line of slow-shuffling retired folks and students packing hampers strung out between here and the train station.
The teams are coming out as I type. Surrey have won the toss and chosen to field, forming a huddle on the outfield to discuss their plans for the day. The main team news is that Mushtaq is missing from the Sussex side - he's expected to be out for three weeks having a knee-operation. Ollie Rayner is in for him, though Sussex have been able to include James Kirtley by way of compensation for their weakened attack. Surrey, then, may have a match-winning advantage in Saqlain Mushtaq, who of course left Sussex last season. Well the window has been slid open, and play has begun, Pedro Collins opening the bowling. And at the other end comes that quick of such considerable stature, Jimmy Ormond ...
12.15pm Michael Vaughan has just thrown his head up to the Headingley heavens in despair, and no wonder, writes David Hopps. For more than three hours, he had laid the groundwork for what should have been an innings of authority. And then he pulled his England teammate, Stuart Broad, gently to deep square leg. It was a soft ending to a tough innings.
Vaughan had pulled Broad confidently for six in his previous over, the Nottinghamshire fast bowler's first of the morning. But Broad had the cheek to test the shot again and Samit Patel, one of two legside outfielders fielders awaiting the lofted shot, stumbled forward to scoop up a low catch.
So Vaughan's innings - 42 from 127 balls - proves precisely nothing. He batted for 188 minutes and his game looks in decent fettle; those of us who remain convinced that he has a long international future will be entirely convinced by what we saw. Others will see his failure to produce a major innings when in good touch as further evidence of a growing tendency that will soon question his longevity as an England batsman. If he does not make runs at Lord's, he will sense a little undermining.
Yorkshire, meanwhile, with four down for 103, have not justified Darren Gough's decision to bat upon winning the toss. This promised to be one of the best games of early season. Whether the weather will allow it to develop remains to be seen.
12.30pm Eighty minutes in and Surrey have already turned to Saqlain Mushtaq to see if he can do what one of their battery of quicks can't and remove one of Sussex's openers, writes Andy Bull. Those two, Nash and Hopkinson, have slipped easily into their rhythm, as though the summer was already several months old.
Surrey's first change was the ever-more-hyped Chris Jordan. The contrast between his bowling action and that of Jimmy Ormond could hardly be starker. Ormond runs in as though he is a man perpetually on the home straight of a marathon. Jordan, 19, has been approached by Clive Lloyd lately with a view to enticing him back to West Indian cricket. Easy to see why: he has a superbly smooth action, and the manner in which he's just had Carl Hopkinson ducking under a pair of vicious bouncers gives a hint that he has the right temperament too.
That said, he hasn't threatened anybody's wicket yet, but then neither have Ormond, Pedro Collins or Matt Nicholson. The opening stand is now 70, and unless Saqlain is about to do something dramatic, it's looking like it could be a long day for Surrey. Nash got a headstart on his partner with an early blister of boundaries. But Hopkinson's early floundering has been cured by a change of bat, and now he too is starting to accelerate.
1.55pm Well Nash eventually succumbed to either impatience or vanity and chopped the ball on to his own stumps trying to hit the four that would have made him 50 not out at lunch, writes Andy Bull. Otherwise, Sussex are untroubled. As is, it appears, Dimitri Mascarenhas, who has been left out of the Rajasthan Royal's side for today's IPL game against the Kolkata Hasselhoffs despite having ditched Hampshire to fly out there for two weeks last Sunday.
If that's not news enough for you, Sussex manager Mark Robinson (and isn't that one time when the journalistic habit of prefixing every name with a job description actually isn't superfluous?) has issued some quotes about Mushtaq's health. "Yadda yadda, yadda, he will be out for two to three weeks, yadda routine op yadda huge player, big loss yadda". Run this through the PA wires, and it becomes headlines, overhear it in the press box - as I did - and it's just dull conversation. Ah, the glory of news.
2.45pm Apologies for the delayed blog, says David Hopps, but the Guardian's Andy Wilson has just phoned to tell me that there is a David Hopps standing in Chorlton, Manchester as a Tory candidate. It's not me, and even if it is, please don't vote for me. I think "Don't Vote Hopps", is a catchphrase that could catch on, especially at my local cricket club where my drainage advice is proving disastrous to all but the declining wading bird population.
Such self-indulgence is unbecoming, I know, but when you have an uncommon name, shocks like this are entirely unexpected. I did not expect to get the energy together to vote today, but now might just stomp off to the polling station in high dudgeon. That's after watching Yorkshire recover against Notts - Jacobus Rudolph (you should never waste a first name like that) and Gerard Brophy have batted without too much trouble since lunch and have so far added 50 for the sixth wicket.
Talking of names, it is apparent that Ryan Sidebottom is increasingly becoming like his dad. Keen observers of county cricket 80s-style might be tempted into ridicule at this point, pointing out that Arnie bowled right arm, short of a length and had thinning reddish hair. A long way removed then from a left-arm swing bowler with a head of hair that resembles the sort of miracle mops sold on daytime shopping channels.
Such points conceded, it is true nevertheless that with every year Ryan possesses more of Arnie's red-faced anger. Both of them seem to gain the energy to get through unstinting spells by sighs, stamps and curses. As a sustainable energy source, it has much to commend it. When the oil and the food runs out, hundreds of Yorkshire club seamers will achieve perpetual motion solely by the energy they generate from ill temper as another thick edge evades the slip cordon.
Ryan's reputation for red-faced exasperation went up a notch on England's tour of Sri Lanka before Christmas, when understandably he became peeved that wholehearted spells in draining heat and humidity often ended with the wicketkeeper, Matt Prior, putting a catch on the floor. However, he will have to go some to match Arnie. In the late 80s, Yorkshire assembled, bright as bobbins, in a London hotel for their opening game of the season against Middlesex. "Looking forward to the new season?" Arnie was asked. He was flabbergasted by the very suggestion. "Pfffwwwh," he snorted.
4.05pm The progress at Hove is all rather stately and sedate, reports Andy Bull. Sussex are rolling along at three runs an over, and Surrey have been reduced to bowling the impressively nonchalant Usman Afzaal, who approaches the crease as though it were a pretty girl sat at a cafe table. Carl Hopkinson, who always seems a curiously anonymous presence when he's batting, has just passed his best first-class score, which was an entirely underwhelming 83.
It's going to take some collusion between the captains to wring a result out of this game in three days. So far it's all been a little one-paced, with nothing more thrilling than the tattered copy of Mike Gatting's 100 Great After Dinner Anecdotes that I found at the book stall behind third man. What a cracker that sounds. In fact I'll go and buy it now, keep you all on tenterhooks by drip-feeding a Gatt classic a day into the blog.
4.30pm Not much happening at Headingley either, writes David Hopps, and anyway, as one blogger has just referred to me as a "veteran", it must be time for my afternoon nap.
6.30pm Well stumps have been drawn here at Hove, writes Andy Bull. The sun is out, but so is Carl Hopkinson, having finally fallen for 97 after a five-hour innings. Painstaking stuff it was too. Sussex closed on 318-5, with nightwatchman James Kirtley keeping Matt Prior company after Murray Goodwin also got out within tantalising reach of a ton. It wasn't enough of a comeback to make Butcher's decision look a good one, but it is tomorrow morning that will now decide this match. If Prior and Luke Wright can kick on, Surrey can bid their gameplan goodbye. Which is what I'm now about to do too. Cheerio.
