CRICKET: Chastening Defeats for Priory
18 July: West Chiltington & Thakeham 231 for 9; Hastings & St Leonards Priory 181 all out
25 July: Priory 237 all out; Haywards Heath 238 for 3
HUGH SULLIVAN
After their encouraging win against Cuckfield on 11 July the cricketers of Hastings & St Leonards Priory will have hoped for a continuation of good form and favourable results. That’s not how it has turned out.
Iden McCleave – 51 against Haywards Heath
A week later, they lost a match that seemed theirs for the taking against West Chiltington & Thakeham, and last Saturday their bowling attack – usually so effective on their home ground at Horntye – was dismantled by a confident Haywards Heath top order. Next game they’ll need all the resilience they can muster: it’s at Middleton, current league leaders.
At West Chiltington, the Priory team arrived with Freddie Hulbert fallen ill en route and unable to take active part. In his absence Shawn Johnson opened the bowling with Adam Barton. Both performed splendidly, and within an hour the home side, who had elected to bat first, were reduced to 33 for five.
A middle order recovery led by home captain Reuben Taylor was held in check by Priory spinners Troy Henry and Alfie Hunter, and when Taylor departed in the 35th over with the score at 111 for eight, a quick end to the innings was assumed.
Instead, no. 9 batsman Ben Lucking launched a monstrous counter-attack, hitting 97 runs off 102 balls with eight fours and five sixes, and sharing a ninth wicket partnership with Benjamin Van Noort (40 not out) which more than doubled the total.
When Priory replied, Hunter and captain Harry Scowen started well enough. But against the penetrating bowling of Oliver Whitehead and Lucking, wickets fell in a heap, and at 90 for seven the game seemed lost. Henry (top scorer with 48), Noah James (37) and Barton batted determinedly to try to salvage a draw, but even that proved beyond them.
At home to Haywards Heath, Priory’s batsmen struggled in the first hour on an uneven pitch. Johnson (40) and Iden McCleave (51) steadied the innings, and with useful contributions all down the order, the final total of 237 looked defensible.
But, after an opening seam attack from Hulbert and Barton which netted one wicket, Scowen rotated his spinners in vain against batsmen who used their feet, ran hard between the wickets, and increasingly peppered the boundary. Barton, off his shortened run, took a couple more wickets, but Hunter and Adam Page both proved innocuous, and eventually Heath captain Jonny Phelps (69 not out off 49 balls including two huge sixes) used his bat like a high-lofting six-iron to power his team to their seven-wicket victory.
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