CRICKET
Priory open their season at Claremont
The cricketers of Hastings & St Leonards Priory will open a new chapter in the club’s history when they take the field at Claremont School for a game against visitors Horsham tomorrow (Saturday). They did in fact play a couple of pre-season friendlies there last month against two Kent League teams, Holmesdale and Tenterden to test out the ground and give their players some match practice. But Saturday’s game marks the beginning of a new competitive season in the Sussex Cricket League away from Horntye Park, which has been their home for the past 30+ years.
Club chairman, John Morgan, still very much involved on the playing side after a storming year with both bat and ball in 2021, explains that the club’s move to Claremont can only be assured as permanent if they get funding for new facilities there from a sale of the Horntye ground. That in turn depends upon the trustee owners securing planning permission for an intended housing development, the application for which seems to have been stalled by the planning department of Hastings Borough Council for some months. But Morgan is happy that the club have committed to play both 1st and 2nd XI matches at Claremont for the full season, regardless of what happens on the planning or sales fronts. “We can only control what’s in our power,” he says, “and we’ve done that, ensuring that we have a local ground to play on for the full season.”
The boundaries may be shorter than at Horntye, but no more so than at several away grounds, and an inspection by league officials has endorsed both the ground and the central pitch –a “SIS-hybrid”, which mixes artificial with natural grass – as fit for Premier Division cricket.
Highs of 2021
All three adult Priory teams ended last season on notable highs. The 3rd team won league promotion; the second team won the county’s T20 Cup at their level; and the first team retained their Premier Division status against all the odds by finishing with four straight wins despite the loss of key players and a string of defeats earlier in the summer.
This season the emphasis will be on youth, Morgan says, with several talented younger players expected to step up to the challenge. All-rounder Harvey Faulkner and fellow-opener Dylan Woolley played important roles in the team in the latter stages of 2021 and can be expected to improve with experience. Young batsman Iden McCleave and 16-year-old fast bowler Dan Pascall may also get first team opportunities.
Of last year’s squad, Harry Finch has left – he has signed for East Grinstead while hoping to resume his county cricket career – and Harry Scowen will be away at university for the first half of the season; Adam Barton will have limited availability as a result of teaching commitments during the school term. Dilshan De Zoysa, the Sri Lankan all-rounder who made major contributions to the team’s successes last year, has also departed.
New recruit
De Zoysa has been replaced, however, as ‘overseas’ recruit by Abhay Negi, who comes from Delhi with a substantial reputation as both fast bowler and hard-hitting batsman. In 2019 he scored the fastest-ever 50 – off just 14 balls – in India’s national Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 tournament. He enjoyed a year’s experience of cricket in English conditions last summer, scoring over 600 runs and taking 47 wickets for Fulwood & Broughton (suburbs of Preston) in the Northern Premier League.
Besides Negi, captain Tom Gillespie will be leading out a team that has been essentially home-grown in Hastings. It is a testimony to the Priory club that, despite the lack of cricket in state secondary schools and the absence of private cricket-playing schools in the vicinity other than Claremont, they can assemble a squad of local players that are competitive at this level. Roll on the summer – let’s hope it’s a fine one.
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