Ton-up Hoppo pressing for a recall

CARL HOPKINSON hopes his magnificent hundred against Australia will earn him a coveted return to Sussex’s Championship side.

The 27-year-old played in every four-day game last season when he also scored his maiden first-class hundred.

But he has been frozen out this summer by the arrival of Ed Joyce and the emergence of Dwayne Smith.

With Matt Prior likely to be missing for the remainder of the season as he helps England to win back the Ashes there is a vacancy in Sussex’s middle order. After his 115 in front of another big Hove crowd, Hopkinson has given himself every chance of filling it, starting at Edgbaston in Sussex’s next Championship game on Tuesday week.

He said: “A hundred against the Aussies – that’s what you dream of, especially in an Ashes year.

“It’s been frustrating not being involved in the first team as much as I’d like but I like to think I’m in the frame for more now.”

The only cloud on Hopkinson’s horizon as he celebrated on Saturday was that if he had gone on, Sussex might have beaten the Australians for only the third time in the history of a fixture first played in 1884.

They got the equation down to 75 off the last ten overs but by then Ricky Ponting had taken the new ball and when Ben Hilfenhaus yorked Robin Martin-Jenkins, Sussex settled for a draw, closing on 373-7 – 45 runs short of their last-day target of 418.

Hopkinson added: “When I got to my hundred it was definitely in the back of my mind and then I got out at a bad time. At the debrief afterwards we did discuss the fact that there hadn’t really been any talk about the run chase but we did have a chance.”

He had one reprieve on 69 when Ponting dropped a dolly at mid-wicket off Nathan Hauritz but otherwise it was a flawless exhibition by Hopkinson, particularly against Hauritz and fellow off-spinner Marcus North.

He came down the pitch three times to loft North into the pavilion for six and a similar shot brought him his 12th boundary and he became only the 17th Sussex batsman to take a hundred off the Aussies.

He added one more four but after facing 126 deliveries in a shade under three hours he got a thin edge to wicketkeeper Brad Haddin trying to run the ball down to third man.

“I had a bit of luck when Ponting dropped that easy catch but sometimes things go your way and I was always looking to hit boundaries and be positive,” said Hopkinson.

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