CRICKET: Priory Set For Horntye Return
HUGH SULLIVAN
The cricketers of Hastings & St Leonards Priory will start a fresh Sussex Premier League campaign tomorrow (Saturday) when they travel to Horsham side Roffey. The next day they have a Twenty20 cup game at Chiddingly. The following Saturday, 18 May, hosting East Grinstead, they will play at Horntye Park for the first time in three years.
Horntye groundsman Mark Foster prepares
Promotion from Division 2 required Priory to find an alternative to the Claremont school ground where they’ve been playing home games over the past two seasons, since the League authorities were unwilling to sanction it as sufficiently spacious for Premier League cricket. (They did play in the top tier there in 2022, but that was on the basis that they would be developing an expanded ground alongside, which is no longer the case). The Horntye Park Management Company, acting as trustee for Hastings and Rother Trust, has stepped in to offer a one-season return to Horntye, with four pitches laid out so as to allow 12 games in total (three on each) over the course of the summer.
That means that the Horntye ground won’t be available for Priory’s second, third or junior teams, which will have to spread themselves between Claremont and Sandhurst (on the Ridge). Club chair John Morgan recognises that this is far from ideal, with equipment and accessories having to be shared across three venues, and a loss of cohesion and camaraderie between the players of different teams rendered inevitable. On the other hand, not only first team players but also their families and supporters will no doubt prefer to enjoy once again the superior facilities and greater accessibility available to them at Horntye.
Last year Priory squeezed to the Division 2 championship title and promotion to the Premier League through a late run of victories sparked by a remarkable sequence of toss successes. Captain Tom Gillespie, or in his absence deputy Harry Scowen, would invite opponents to bat first on a damp wicket; a penetrative seam attack led by Morgan confined them to a moderate team score; then a determined if sometimes erratic batting response generally saw Priory home.
DRIER AND FLATTER
This year it seems likely that the Horntye pitch at least will be drier and flatter, and the toss won’t be won so invariably. Bowlers will have to earn wickets more effortfully at Premier level; batters will need to perform more consistently. But the very young side which found the standard of Premier cricket a little beyond them in 2022 has matured by two years, learnt what winning feels like in 2023, and should be capable of holding its own this time round.
Two years ago Cuckfield won the Division 2 championship; last year they won the Premier League. Who’s to say Priory can’t emulate that sequence?
Scowen has taken over the captaincy from Gillespie this season. He will have virtually the same group of players to lead, including returning Australian all-rounder Alex Osborne, whose energetic performances with bat, ball and in the field were key components of the team’s success in 2023. Morgan reports that Osborne, now aged 21, has not only been playing top grade cricket for the Scarborough club in Western Australia over the winter but also gained some IPL experience in Lucknow, India. He should arrive well-practised, even if conditions in East Sussex are rather different.
Scowen and Dylan Woolley were the team’s most prolific scorers last summer, and will presumably renew their opening partnership. Much is hoped for from a young (25-year-old) wicket-keeper batsman Adam Keane, who hails from Port Talbot in Wales. Eddie Finch, son of Jason and brother of Harry, is another promising recruit.
The bowling attack has lost leg spinner Harvey Faulkner, who may have felt his opportunities constrained by Osborne’s retention in the same capacity. But there’s strength in depth in the seam attack: even if the evergreen Morgan doesn’t plunder as many wickets as last year, Scowen should have the diverse talents of Satchi Mahendran, Seaver Cowley, Adam Barton, Adam Page and Iden McCleave to call upon.
What’s needed now is a fine summer.
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