Where does Mushy rank in the list of Sussex's greats?

You wait 164 years for an open-top bus to come along and then three arrive at the same time. That was the feeling we had 20 years ago when the long loiter for the first County Championship was followed quickly by two more titles.

As Sussex celebrate the anniversary of 2006, when the county won the double of the Championship and the C&G Trophy – there will be a Rewind to 2006 celebration at Hove on Friday - Hove and Away joins in the fun.

In the second extract from our 2008 book Flight of the Martlets: The Golden Age of Sussex Cricket, we ask the big question. Was Mushtaq Ahmed, the key factor in all three championships, county cricket’s greatest overseas player?

Mushtaq Ahmed, it might be argued, is the greatest overseas signing in the history of county cricket. There is no definitive answer to this rainy-day taproom teaser.

It is not something that can be measured in runs and wickets alone. Certainly the influence Mike Procter had at Gloucestershire extended beyond his heroic fast bowling and powerful batting in the late middle-order; he was the very essence of the side.

Garry Sobers’s performances for Nottinghamshire - like Procter and many others he arrived in 1968 – merely underlined what most people had already suspected: here was the greatest all-round cricketer the game had ever seen.

There are some who bracket Malcolm Marshall with Dennis Lillee as the greatest of fast bowlers. Here was a deeply intelligent bowler, not just a thrillingly fast one, a player could swing the ball both ways at great speed and, to the delight of his captain, bowl and bowl until the ball was ripped from his grasp.

At Lancashire, Clive Lloyd’s fielding was as inspiring as his languidly powerful batting, and much the same could be said about Viv Richards at Somerset.

One-day trophies were seized, but not one of these great cricketers succeeded in winning the ultimate prize for his county. At Sussex, the oldest county, and essentially a small one, the greatest prize of the County Championship had never been held aloft.

Mushtaq was the principal reason why Sussex won not one Championship but three in the space of five years. And for that reason alone he should rank at least alongside the more celebrated names mentioned above.

He not only bowled his side to victory after victory, but he made those around him believe in themselves. He helped develop a team ethic in what can often be a selfish game.

He played a leading role in 2003 in a fundamental shift in the dressing-room mindset, that success, and failure, was now down to the team and not one or two isolated individuals.

The impact on Sussex made by Mushtaq is immense and will never be forgotten. But if your recall ever falters – and this could be associated with acute short-term memory loss, so consult a doctor – take a drive to the Utilita Bowl, about an hour from Hove.

This is Hampshire chairman Rod Bransgrove’s Camelot, where fantasy and glass fibre have come together to produce an attractive new cricket facility, just off the motorway, east of Southampton.

There was an ambition to play international cricket here. But the main aim was to win the County Championship for the first time since 1973. In this, Bransgrove has been unsuccessful, though the county came second in 2005 and third in 2006.

To bring the title to the county, Hampshire hired the considerable services of Shane Warne. Some say that Warne is the best bowler of them all, ahead of the fast men and medium-pacers as well as his fellow twirlers.

Others claim that he is simply the finest spin bowler of all time. Another still more conservative bunch are content to describe him as the greatest leg-spinner there has ever been, and here the dissenters are few.

But while Warne has struggled and failed to bring the Championship to Hampshire, Mushtaq Ahmed has been the main reason why Sussex have won a fistful of titles over the same period.

It is worth engaging with Hampshire supporters in an effort to solve this conundrum. It is not that they can explain it – because they can’t – but they can get very cross and bewildered as they try to, which is great fun.

While Warne would have sauntered into a World XI of any era, or even the all-time World XI we regularly choose to play Mars, Mushtaq has struggled to regain his Test place in the Pakistan side in recent years.

But, season in and season out, the little miracle from Sahiwal has consistently outperformed one of the game’s great legends. Warne’s appearances, of course, have been more fitful since he first played for Hampshire in 2000.

In 2005 Australia staked a prior claim, but when he has played a full season he has still come second best to the bearded, chuckling, bouncy Mushtaq, who has been the most successful bowler in county cricket for each of the past five summers.

Mushtaq took 103 Championship wickets in 2003, 84 in 2004, 80 in 2005, 102 in 2006 and 90 in 2007, giving him a total of 459 wickets at 24.69. That is an average of nearly 92 wickets a season.

Warne, too, has had five seasons of county cricket – 2000 and four summers from 2004. He has taken 276 wickets for Hampshire at 25.58. In his four full, or fullish, years of 2000 (70 wickets), 2004 (51), 2006 (58) and 2007 (50) he was not in Mushtaq’s class as a consistent winner of matches.

Warne has taken five wickets in an innings on 18 occasions for Hampshire, with one return of ten in the match. Mushtaq has 39 five-fors and 15 match ten-fors.

Even when they go head-to-head, Warne sometimes struggles to keep up. At Arundel in June 2006, when Sussex won by 166 runs, Warne had figures of 5-91 in the first innings. Mushtaq responded with 7-72 and had a couple in the second inning too, when Warne failed to take a wicket.

Sussex captain Chris Adams said: “Mushy is not an extravagant turner of the ball. He doesn’t give it a big rip, like Warne. The majority of his wickets are lbw or bowled. That would suggest that he is not one of the biggest turners because if he was he would find it difficult to hit the stumps.

“But he’s a master at bowling at the right pace, varying his flight and putting the ball in the difficult areas. His control is superb. His game is not so much about bowling magic balls, as tying batsmen down until they make errors. Mushy was absolutely brilliant for us.”

Chris Adams and Mushtaq Ahmed are among the guests attending the Rewind to 2006 ahead of Friday’s Vitality Blast match against Leicestershire at Hove in aid of the Sussex Foundation. For more information click here.