Fourteen wickets fell at Hove as two sides needing a victory that would make sure of their first division status produced a compelling day.
Sussex were in the ascendancy when they bowled Yorkshire out for 194 after tea but the visitors fought back, reducing the hosts 84-4 when bad light ended with 13 overs not bowled.
A draw would probably suit both teams in their battle to avoid an immediate return to the second division but despite no play on the first day there is now every chance of a positive result.
A pitch that had been under cover for the best part of 48 hours offered help to the seamers throughout but there was also some flawed shot selection from both teams.
It looked a good toss to win when Yorkshire reached 100-2, but left-armer Jaydev Unadkat and Fynn Hudson-Prentice, who took three wickets apiece, and the excellent Ollie Robinson fought back to take six wickets between lunch and tea before off-spinner Jack Carson finished the innings off.
With the floodlights on, Yorkshire hit back with the new ball. Jack White had Dan Hughes smartly taken low at third slip and Tom Haines was lbw to Matt Milnes working to leg.
Milnes struck again in his sixth over thanks to wicketkeeper Jonny Bairstow’s alertness. Hill shelled a catch at slip, but the ball landed on Bairstow’s right boot and he scooped it into his gloves as it bounced up.
James Coles (29) shaped up well until he found mid-wicket trying to work Jordan Thompson through square.
The subsequent clatter of wickets had seemed unlikely for much of the morning session as Fin Bean and Adam Lyth accumulated patiently before Bean (27) was caught behind trying to cut Hudson-Prentice’s medium pace and in the last over before lunch left-armer Sean Hunt found Lyth’s inside edge after he’d made 47 and looked to have done the hard work.
Yorkshire then lost five for 15 in 7.2 overs with James Wharton taken low down at slip by Jack Carson to give Robinson a belated reward.
Bairstow was bowled through the gate by Unadkat in the next over and he struck again when Matthew Revis played at a delivery he could comfortably have ignored well outside off stump.
Hill drove loosely and was caught at slip and Dom Bess fell to a leg-side strangle.
Jordan Thompson glided the hat-trick ball from Hudson-Prentice effortlessly to the cover rope and Sussex would have been in an even stronger position had Coles held a waist-high chance at second slip before Thompson added to his boundary.
Instead, Thompson and Indian Mayank Agarwal put conditions into perspective by adding 52 for the eighth wicket with few alarms.
Agarwal, who made a golden duck on his debut at Taunton last week, had been in since the fall of the first wicket and although he struggled with his timing during nearly two and a half hours he did a solid job while wickets tumbled at the other end until following one from Unadkat which had shaped away.
After tea, Carson pinned Thompson (38) with a ball which straightened just enough and the innings ended when White was caught at slip driving loosely at Carson.
Report supplied by ECB Reporters’ Network, supported by Rothesay
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