In the end the family club triumphed again on Saturday, but only after the most tense finale to any County Championship since it was first formally organised in 1890. Chris Adams, the Sussex captain, extraordinarily durable in his tenth year in the job, had been predicting for some time that it would go to the final day before it was definitely resolved, but he can hardly have expected that it would be the final hour. He was a proud, happy and deeply relieved man after Lancashire’s heroic failure to score the 489 that Surrey had set them, generously given that they knew Lancashire would have to go for the runs. When Dominic Cork, the great competitor, was last out with four overs and one ball left, they were only 25 runs short.

When the team that has been moulded in Adams’s own tough, resilient and uncompromising image defeated Yorkshire at their Hove fortress two weeks ago they became the overwhelming favourites to win their third title in five years, but defeat away to Durham in three days the next week left them reliant in their sixteenth match on the match-winning genius of Mushtaq Ahmed and the pure supremacy of Mark Ramprakash.

Both delivered handsomely, so on Saturday evening Adams accepted another £100,000 cheque from LV, the sponsors – a pathetic return by modern cricket standards for so genuinely arduous a campaign, worth only a fraction of that sum to 17 cricketers for four months’ work and in total less than the amount that John Terry gets for a week’s labour at Chelsea. Yesterday, deeply relieved that he decided, ten months ago, not to go to Yorkshire after all as their player-coach, Adams joined his celebrating teammates in an open-topped bus for a parade around Brighton and Hove.

Mark Robinson, the director of professional cricket, confirmed that the captaincy is likely to remain unchanged after an agonising afternoon for the players in the pavilion. They were unable to watch the coverage of Lancashire’s match at the Oval on interactive television but cheers from the waiting crowd listening to radios kept them informed of every wicket that went down. “The drama made the elation all the greater,” Robinson said.

After his 13 wickets for 225 in the conclusive victory over Worcestershire, Mushtaq finished as the leading bowler in the country, as he has in each of his five seasons for Sussex that have brought him 459 wickets with 39 five-wicket hauls and 15 of ten or more in a match. His spirit and tirelessness have been as admirable as his skill.

Of the six players regularly involved in the three Championship wins, Rich-ard Montgomerie has retired on the high note of making 1,000 Championship runs and taking 30 catches in his benefit year (9,394 runs and more than 160 catches in his nine seasons at the club). Robin Martin-Jenkins, next year’s beneficiary, bowled well all season, adding 36 wickets to his customary economy. The latter, plus Adams, Michael Yardy, Jason Lewry and Mushtaq himself, should all remain as the team’s backbone next year, along with Murray Goodwin, prolific again this season.

Lewry keeps going valuably – 33 wickets this year – but protects a suspect knee by opting out of one-day cricket. No longer able to have Rana Naved-ul-Hasan, Sussex would like an extra fast bowler and another top-or-der batsman. Rikki Clarke, the Surrey all-rounder, might fit the bill but only if it is felt that he would fit the club ethos. Even last year Sussex were fretting about how they could keep the impetus going but big progress was made this season by Andrew Hodd, Chris Nash and Luke Wright and it is possible that Matt Prior might return if he is unable to establish himself for England.

A brilliant left-handed catch by Adams off Naved to dismiss Stuart Law at Liverpool on the second day of August was probably the single most important moment of Sussex’s season. It came early in a compelling performance by the bowlers in the fourth innings on a ground where Lancashire had beaten them last year. The long Lancashire drought - 73 years and counting since the last outright title – would surely have ended had they won that match but, in the end, it was Durham who matched Sussex for the number of games won, seven, and who deservedly finished as runners-up in a season in which they also won the Friends Provident Trophy and gained promotion from the second division of the NatWest Pro40.

Another impressive captain, Dale Benkenstein, and fast bowling strength, all home grown except for the remarkable Ottis Gibson, have been the chief reasons for Durham being arguably the team of the season, although Somerset, the runaway winners of the second division, might contest that.

There must be sympathy for Lancashire again, but, if there is a lesson, it may be that they should do their very best to make V. V. S. Laxman a long-standing member of the team. He scored a run-a-ball hundred before becoming what was probably Ian Salisbury’s final first-class victim.

Their other overseas players this season – the incomparable Muttiah Muralitharan and to a lesser extent Brad Hodge – played their parts, too, in the long campaign but short-term mercenaries are inevitably less deeply committed to the cause than long-term appointments. One of the Sussex secrets in the past five seasons has been to choose new recruits carefully and to make Hove feel like home for all who play for them, not to mention everyone else at the club.

Win habit

3

County Championships won by Sussex in the past five years

164

Years that Sussex had to wait for their first title

90

Wickets taken by Mushtaq Ahmed this season

142

Wickets taken by the rest of the Sussex attack

459

Wickets taken by Mushtaq in five seasons with Sussex