Delray Rawlins and his Sussex teammates and Surrey were frustrated onlookers as rain ruined a promising looking Vitality Blast match at The 1st Central County Ground, with the game evenly poised when play was abandoned after just 15.2 overs of play.
The Sharks were hoping for a total of over 200 when they had reached 82 for one after eight overs, but they then lost four key batsmen for 12 runs in the space of 20 balls.
Surrey had chosen to bowl and the Sussex captain Luke Wright and Phil Salt got their side off to a solid start, but they had a let-off in the fourth over when Salt was caught at mid-on off the bowling of Matt Dunn, before umpire Ian Gould ruled a no-ball because Surrey had three fielders outside the circle.
Wright was out in the following over, however - chopping a delivery from Gus Atkinson onto his stumps for 31 to make it 41 for one in the fifth over.
Salt responded to that disappointment by thrashing the next over, bowled by James Taylor, for 28 runs. The sequence went 4, 6, 6, 4, 4, 4, with the successive maximums both clearing the Cow Corner boundary.
After the bright start, wickets started to fall when Harry Finch skied left-arm spinner Daniel Moriarty to Rory Burns on the leg-side boundary. Salt then hit the last delivery of the tenth over flat to deep backward square-leg for a 22-ball 40.
Sussex’s chances of posting a high score disappeared in the first three balls of the 12th over. First Delay Rawlins, backing up too much, couldn’t get back in his ground and was run out for seven and two balls later Ravi Bopara, making his keenly anticipated debut for Sussex, miscued his pull to midwicket having scored just a single.
Sussex were suddenly 95 for five and looking up against it, but Aaron Thomason and George Garton steered their side to 116-5 before play was stopped.
Sharks head coach, Jason Gillespie said: "It was developing into an exciting match. For a couple of overs, we lost a couple of wickets - but we were ready to push in the final five overs and put up a competitive total.
