Cuckfield lose out as Cammish leads East Grinstead home

Having won the toss, Cuckfield decided to bat on a hard, flat surface. In the face of a strong opening spell from former Sussex Professional Lewis Hatchett and Ian Sturmer, Cuckfield lost Ludlow for 7.

Australian Harry Nielsen dug in alongside Tom Weston, who both saw off the new ball before capitalising later on.

Weston followed up his 150 in the first week with a measured 79 while Nielsen hit his highest score for Cuckfield (88). Both were removed by the spin of Brad Hatchett, leaving Cuckfield 192-3. Despite some promising signs, Cuckfield’s lower order struggled to capitalise, an attacking 27 from Brad Gayler seeing the score up to 250.

EG openers Will Adkin and Tom Haynes batted with ease throughout their innings, putting on 108. Patterson removed Haynes for 54, and Nielsen removed Adkin for 80, score 187-2. Leo Cammish marshalled Grinstead home with a well paced 71, who at one stage need 32 runs off the last 4 overs following a much-needed period of pressure from Cuckfield.

Cammish, however, had the game completely under control - taking a 6 and two 4s from one over to give the game to East Grinstead with 9 balls to spare.

Cuckfield 2nd XI v Ram 1st XI: Ram beat Cuckfield at home by just 6 runs in a closely fought game. Ram won the toss and elected to bat first and the openers Rakesh Patel (27) and Bunty Suthar (26) got off to a good start until both were dismissed caught behind off the bowling of George Mercer.

Two quick wickets from Nick Walters and a run out by Will Rossiter seemed tout Cuckfield in the driving seat at 82 for 5. A middle order resistance, a partnership of 72, from Nishit Patel (38) and Kartik Patel (42) taking Ram to 154 for 6 was broken as Goff Baker spun his way to 4 wickets and the visitors were bowled out for 199 in the 39th over.

The Cuckfield reply faltered to 64 for 6 as only Chris Mole (21) passed 20 and Dilip Chauhan picked up 4 wickets. This brought the veteran pairing of Richie Amer and Jack Waghorn together who grafted to keep Cuckfield in the game taking the score to 150 before Amer was bowled by Harshil Patel for 57.

Another wicket for Harshil left Cuckfield needing 35 runs from 6 overs with two wickets remaining. Waghorn and Sam Candfield took it to the last over needing just 7 to win, but it was not to be as Candfield (17) and Waghorn (49) succumbed to the bowling of Nishit Patel. This left Cuckfield tantalisingly short of the Ram score.

Cuckfield 3rd XI v Poynings 1st XI: Cuckfield won by one wicket at home to Poynings on Saturday. Cuckfield skipper Matt Slinger won the toss and put the visitors into bat. The Cuckfield openers, Rodney Candfield and Chris Osborne struck early taking three between them before Slinger entered the fray and took 5 for the second week running including the Poynings opener Tom Brookes who made 46.

Sam Shepherd also picked up two wickets as Cuckfield dismissed the visitors for 98 in 30 overs.

The chase was anything but simple as Richard Brookes and Jonny Carpenter dismissed Cuckfield’s top 6 with only Nathan Buckeridge (11) making double figures. A cameo of 22 from the redoubtable Jeremy Crampton and 12 not out from the skipper saw Cuckfield home, 9 wickets down in the 27th over.

Cuckfield 4th XI v Newick 2nd XI: Cuckfield lost by seven wickets away at Newick. Winning the toss, Cuckfield skipper, Glenn Smith elected to bat first. With both openers quickly back in the hutch, Will Galbraith Gibbons showed everyone how it should be done, hitting 66 as the rest of the Cuckfield batsmen collapsed around him to 127 all out in the 32nd over.

Newick lost 3 wickets chasing down the total in 26 overs as Greg Seed picked up the wicket of opener Josh Essex, bowled for 31 and Ellis Buckeridge dismissed Tim Rylatt, bowled for 24, and Robet Bailey, stumped by Nigel Reid for 20.