Sussex made it two wins from two and lead the County Championship after defeating Worcestershire by 61 runs. Matt Machan's 135 contributed to a first innings lead but it took Ahmed Shahzad's 5-46 to clinch victory in a game far from being one-sided.
Yorkshire are second after a high-scoring draw with Nottinghamshire, for whom Alex Hales put aside his World Cup woes with a swashbuckling 236 batting at three. The White Roses were still missing their stars but Lees and Leaning each reached three figures.
Hampshire and Warwickshire enjoyed a close encounter, too, at Edgbaston. Sean Ervine and Tim Ambrose struck centuries then a result looked certain with the home side having just over a day to either overhaul the 379 target or protect their wickets. They seemed to take the defensive approach and Varun Chopra defied eight bowlers for more than six hours for his unbeaten 119, enough to save the match with ease.
In Division Two, Essex beat Kent in a match in which no innings saw 200 on the scoreboard. Jesse Ryder's five-for and James Foster's aggressive 80 saw Essex home. Lancashire won their first fixture of 2015 by the oomfortable margin of 250 runs. However the apparent ease of the victory was misleading as it owed everything to Derbyshire's last day collapse, mainly at the hands of Kyle Jarvis (5-13). Old-timers Alviro Petersen and Ashwell Prince top-scored, but two 20 year-olds made impressions, too. Lancashire 'keeper Alex Davies smashed five sixes in his 89, while Derby seamer Tom Taylor took 6-61 in a seemingly solo effort to halt their opponents' march to a substantial second innings total. Sadly for him it was all in vain.
Surrey amassed the week's highest score, declaring at 563-7 in Cardiff after first Kumar Sangakkara then Stephen Davies made the Glamorgan bowlers toil, the latter reaching 200 not out. However, Glamorgan hung on gamely, especially Craig Meschede at nine, who was still there at the end on 101. Sanga, Pietersen and others upped the scoring rate to declare but the Glamorgan openers shared a century stand on day four and a draw was agreed.
My Team of the Week: Lees (York), Chopra (War, *), Hales (Not), Machan (Sus), Davies (Sur), Ambrose (War, +), Ryder (Ess), Stevens (Kent), Shahzad (Sus), Jarvis (Lan), Taylor (Der).
