After Ed Giddins had bowled Surrey into a winning position with a one-day career best of five for 20, an unbroken fifth wicket stand of 75 in twelve overs by Nadeem Shahid and Adam Hollioake finally saw the Lions home with more than six overs to spare against the Sharks.

Of the main protagonists Hollioake’s performance was arguably the most decisive. The flourish with which the Surrey skipper struck an unbeaten 42 off 34 balls, including two enormous sixes off Mark Robinson in the 36th over, seemed to rub off on the hesitant Shahid. The former Essex man then lifted the same bowler over mid-wicket before reeling off three more boundaries in four balls to go to his first one-day half-century against county opposition since September 2000.

Six years on from being sacked for failing a random drugs test, Giddins had earlier given his former employers a well-timed reminder of what they let go by accounting for five of Sussex’s top six batsmen. His incursion left them 40 for five, which became 53 for six when Matthew Prior drove the ball straight back to Rikki Clarke.

Having survived a half chance to backward point in the first over of the day, the visitors’ acting captain Richard Montgomerie was caught behind prodding at a ball that left him off the pitch. Two balls later Murray Goodwin was adjudged leg before on the back foot and, after going wicket-less for three overs, it was eventually decided that Ed Giddins should be awarded the scalp of Will House; whom Ian Salisbury insisted he had taken low down at point.

The Sharks were then pegged back further in the fourteenth over when Ed Giddins had Michael Yardy nibbling at one angled away and Bas Zuiderent playing around a ball directed at off and middle stumps.

But until Adam Hollioake arrived at the crease, the home side somehow managed to lose their way in the intervening period. Due to Robin Martin-Jenkins’s 50 off 76 balls, Sussex fought back to make a tolerable 150 all out. Furthermore, on the same strip that produced 867 runs four days earlier, it took the Lions twenty-seven overs to get halfway to their objective. They also lost four wickets in the process.

Alistair Brown was caught and bowled in Billy Taylor’s third over. Ian Ward went nine overs later, trying to force a ball of full length through mid-wicket. On the day he received his Surrey cap, Mark Ramprakash was out to a brilliant running catch by Montgomerie, whose dive ended up at deep mid-on, and Clarke was stumped off the bowling of Kevin Innes for an arduous 13 in 39 deliveries.

However, it was not all good news for the home side yesterday. Martin Bicknell will be out for at least four weeks with a fractured his right wrist, which the 33-year-old fast bowler sustained when fell over in his delivery stride in the eleventh over.

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