Sussex 204 (Bamber 3-47) and 328 for 5 (Leaning 120*, Hughes 83, Price 70*) beat Warwickshire 267 (Woakes 64, Smith 53, Crocombe 3-44, Price 3-71) and 264 (Yates 90, Hudson-Prentice 4-44) by five wickets

Sussex last won the Championship in 2007 but are now openly targeting a title challenge this year. “We can do something special,” Robinson said. “We’ve got guys that can basically do everything, from No. 1 to 11. We’ve got good confidence in the group, and our message every game is: we’re playing to win. We’re not playing for draws. If we lose trying to win, then so be it.”

It seems like a realistic ambition after back-to-back wins and would be a remarkable achievement for a club who only recently were languishing at the bottom of Division Two. The only problem is the unavoidable reality that it is unsustainable: Sussex need to trim their wage bill significantly, and several players will have to leave at the end of the season.

Player salaries were not the only cause of Sussex’s financial plight: the club has underperformed commercially – the County Ground no longer has a title sponsor, for example – and ticket sales were poor. But as Paul Farbrace, their head coach, acknowledged earlier this year: “It looks as though we’ve hugely overspent on cricket.”

The paradox for Sussex is that it is that same spending that might provide their fans with some respite from the club’s off-field woes. It has enabled them to build a competitive squad which finished fourth in Division One last year, while Leaning and Price – who knocked off 94 runs without offering a genuine chance on the final day – were canny winter additions.

When Leaning joined from Kent in October on a three-year contract, he cited Farbrace as a “really big pull” and described Sussex as a club who were “certainly on the way up”. Six months later, everything has changed: Farbrace will leave at the end of the season, and Sussex are braced for a period of austerity after unsustainable spending.

Leaning will be the club’s last major signing for some time, so it is just as well that he looks like a good one. He failed to reach 50 in Division Two last year but remodelled his technique under the watch of former team-mate Darren Stevens in the winter, adding a trigger movement, and reaped the rewards with a measured, unbeaten hundred to win the game.

“At Kent for the last few years, we struggled for wins,” Leaning said. “It’s tough as a group when you’re always fighting to save the game. The difference in attitude, when the first few days are done and you’re like, ‘Right, how are we going to win this game?’ is such a refresher as a player… There’s a really good feeling around the group at the moment.”

The challenge now is to sustain their spring form across the summer. Hudson-Prentice is one of several players – along with John Simpson, Tom Clark and Henry Crocombe – who is in the last year of his contract and therefore able to speak to other counties from June 1, while injuries to Sean Hunt and Dom Goodman will test the depth of their seam attack.

Jaydev Unadkat is due to join for the second half of the Championship season, but the ECB’s restrictions mean that Sussex will only be able use the loan market if they suffer a genuine availability crisis. Their title hopes may yet depend on Robinson bowling well, but not quite well enough to earn a recall to England’s Test team.

Either way, Sussex could not have asked for a better start to the season. They have next week off to reflect on two fine wins, then head to Headingley and The Oval for further tests of their title credentials. “The first two [games] of the season are always hard on your body,” Robinson said. “To have the break now and then go four in a row after, I think we should be good.”

In the early 2000s, Leeds United chairman Peter Ridsdale defended the club’s unsustainable spending on player salaries by saying: “Should we have spent so heavily in the past? Probably not, but we lived the dream.” Sussex know that a fallow period of their own is coming soon, but perhaps a Championship title would make the pain feel worthwhile.