THE skies over Hove beamed a brilliant blue, and a warm sun quickly evaporated the overnight rain on the outfield. It seemed the perfect day for a promenade on Brighton pier. But the morning never delivered on its promise. By lunchtime the light was fading fast and a cold wind was rolling in.

Sussex, too, had a deceptively bright start. A wicket in their first over followed by some tight bowling from Mushtaq Ahmed and Robin Martin-Jenkins ought to have put Surrey on the back foot. But the only back foot on show in the afternoon was Alistair Brown’s, accompanying his pull shot.

After last year, when Brown’s championship form struck a barren patch (481 runs from 12 matches at 28.29), he has enjoyed a richer harvest. When he reached 29, he took his championship tally past 1,000. As play was suspended for rain and bad light at 4.05pm, he was on 93 not out, having brought up his half-century off 70 balls with eight fours.

Mark Ramprakash had brought up his own fifty in the penultimate over before lunch by walking down the pitch and straight-driving Mushtaq back along the ground, but became the object of revenge when Mushtaq trapped him leg-before with the second ball after the lunch break.

At 128 for four, Surrey might have retreated into themselves, but Brown would have none of it. His shots did not all come off but he persisted, and what they lacked in timing they compensated for in vim. In the same over that he brought up his fifty, he hooked the last ball to the square-leg boundary, where its sheer vigour caused Chris Adams to palm a fairly easy catch over the boundary for six.

Sussex counter-attacked with two quick wickets, Jon Batty edging an expansive sweep behind off Mark Davis and Rikki Clarke swinging across the line to Martin-Jenkins. But a lead of 272 will be a strong platform for Surrey’s final day assault.