CRICKET: Depleted Priory Beaten Twice More
3 August:
Middleton 367 for 5; Hastings Priory 140 all out
10 August
Hastings Priory 160; Three Bridges 166 for 5
HUGH SULLIVAN
Tom Gillespie, captain in 2021
Two heavy defeats for the cricketers of Hastings & St Leonards Priory over the past two Saturdays, coupled with more favourable results for other teams around them in the Sussex Premier League table, have left the Hastings side in dire straits.
Assuming that Worthing, with only one win and 13 defeats in 14 matches, are relegation-bound, avoidance of the second drop place seems to be a contest now between Priory and Bognor Regis, with just four matches each to be played. Two other sides that were struggling, Roffey and East Grinstead, seem to have hit form with three wins each in their last five. Bognor beat Priory by ten wickets on 29 June but haven’t won since. The two sides are due to play each other again on 31 August.
Priory will target this return fixture as a must-win game along with their match at Worthing tomorrow (Saturday), but will need both their batsmen and their bowlers to re-discover a winning streak.
BOWLING FLOGGED
On 3 August, Priory travelled to Middleton without captain and leading batsman Harry Scowen, overseas recruit Alex Osborne or most dependable bowler Adam Page. The home side opened with yet another century partnership – the sixth against Priory in 13 games – and the top order flogged the bowling mercilessly from start to finish, scoring at an average of more than seven runs per over. Seaver Cowley conceded 103 runs in his 11 overs; Felix Sheppard 51 in just three.
Priory were batting strictly for survival, and Tom Gillespie (20) and Adam Keane (23) each lasted for around an hour, but the rest of the batsmen subsided tamely. The margin of defeat was 227 runs.
Last Saturday Scowen returned to the Priory line-up for a home game against championship-chasing Three Bridges, but opening bowler John Morgan was left out to rest an injury, Osborne was again omitted, and Keane was also unavailable. Scowen opted to bat first, and he himself made a breezy 33, but thereafter the Priory batsmen were tied down by accurate bowling and the inning became becalmed. Dylan Woolley took 70 balls to score 19, Gillespie 26 to make 10, and though Eddie Finch upped the scoring rate in making 33, the rest of the order batted without confidence or success.
Priory’s opening attack featured spinner Adam Page partnering Adam Barton. Page bowled tidily to take the first four Three Bridges wickets – two in his fourth over, two in his ninth – to keep the outcome in the balance at 82 for four. But, as he tired and was withdrawn, the visitors’ fifth and sixth wicket partnerships gobbled up the remainder of the bowling to give them a comfortable five wicket win.
THE STATS DON’T LIE
So what has gone wrong for the Hastings side? It’s quite easy to see, from a statistical point of view. Last year’s strength in teamwork was enough to make them stronger overall than the average Division 2 side. But the Sussex Premier League is rather different: most sides there have a number of higher quality batsmen and/or bowlers that can step up to hit an unstoppable innings or bowl an irresistible spell.
Of the top ten batsmen in the league (by aggregate of runs scored), none are from Priory. Scowen is 14th with 422 runs at an average of 42.2; Caleb Laloo is next – 25th – with 312 at 31.2. Of the bowlers, Page’s four wickets last Saturday have taken him up to 15th highest wicket-taker, with 16 at 24.3 each, while Morgan is 20th with 15 at 33.67 each. These are commendable returns, but they’ve too seldom been match-winning ones.
Can Priory still survive? Of course they can. Scowen, Gillespie, Morgan, Page, Barton and Woolley all played in the 2021 team which defied the odds by winning their last four league matches to retain their Premier status. But they surely have to start matching that finish by winning at Worthing tomorrow.
Sussex Premier League Table (bottom five)
| P | W | D | L | A | Bat | BL | Pts | |
| Roffey | 14 | 6 | 2 | 5 | 1 | 38 | 30 | 258 |
| East Grinstead | 14 | 6 | 1 | 5 | 2 | 20 | 30 | 250 |
| Bognor Regis | 14 | 4 | 1 | 8 | 1 | 35 | 60 | 223 |
| Hastings & St L Priory | 14 | 4 | 1 | 8 | 1 | 47 | 23 | 190 |
| Worthing | 14 | 1 | 0 | 13 | 0 | 51 | 27 | 118 |
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