CRICKET: Local round-up (August 5)

The loss leaves them 73 points behind Goring, who took over at the top from Middleton on Saturday, although Littlehampton do have a game in hand.

Littlehampton were forced into five changes from the previous week for Saturday's game, with Benn Challen, Gareth Challen, Chris Hanks, James Askew and Stuart Stoneham all out.

The club's youngsters stepped up to the plate well, though, and 14-year-old Michael Askew, on his first-team debut, smashed 62 as Littlehampton scored 233-6 from their 53 overs.

Chris Heberlein top-scored with 77 to move on to 292 runs for the season.

In their reply, Middleton got off to a lightning start and brought up their 100 after just 12 overs.

Amjad Mohsin and Ryan Budd both took two wickets but 61 not out from Jamie Thompson, 59 from Ben Hansford and 51 from Jack Lerwill took Middleton to victory in just 39.3 overs.

Both Hansford and Thompson were dropped early in their innings, though, and Littlehampton all-rounder Dan Rive said: "In hindsight, we were maybe 20 or 30 runs short but we got bogged down at the wrong time in our innings.

"But we'd have settled for 233 before the game and everyone contributed with the bat well, especially as we were missing our main batsman, Benn Challen. The talk at tea was about bowling in the right areas but they got off to a flyer, even though Luke Vinter got an early breakthrough.

"There were positives to come out of the game but it was disapppointing the way we allowed them to get on top of us in their first 15 overs."

Littlehampton host Steyning on Saturday.

East Preston claimed local bragging rights and boosted their West Sussex Invitation League Division 1 survival hopes on Saturday with a 10-wicket demolition job on Clymping.

EP skittled out Clymping for just 84 after an excellent bowling performance and then knocked off the runs in just 10.4 overs to finish the game at 4.50pm.

Clymping lost Kim Dean in the first over and things did not get much better from then on. Karl Pierce top-scored with 26 but was one of only three players to reach double figures.

Jack Sunderland and Tom Chamberlain both took four wickets each, while Mark Coskin grabbed two in an economical 15.2-over spell.

The first ball of EP's reply went for five wides and Chris Williams then blasted a quickfire 60, from only 33 balls, with nine fours and two sixes as EP cruised to a 10-wicket win – just a week after they had suffered a 10-wicket reverse themselves.

EP remain third from bottom, although are now 31 points ahead of second-from-bottom Clymping.

EP captain Andy Reeves, who missed the game through injury, said: "It was a really good effort and most things went right but we could have bowled them out for less as we put down four or five catches.

"The bowlers were great and did everything we could have asked of them.

"The toss was vital as the wicket was lively early on and 150 would have been a decent score.

"We were one point ahead of them before the game, so to get the 30 points and for them to not get any, puts things back in our hands and it would still be nice to finish a couple of places higher up."

EP have a free week this week, while Clymping travel to leaders Crawley Eagles.

Rustington drew their Division 4 match at Crawley Eagles 2nd to move up to third from bottom.

After putting Eagles into bat, Rustington dismissed them for 240 in 44 overs. Aftab blasted 141 and Musawer struck 41 for Eagles before Rustington finished their 50 overs on 207-9.

Martyn Payne top-scored with 50 and Alan Hodgson finished unbeaten on 44 as Razah took 5-65.

Despite their six-wicket defeat at Sussex League Division 3 West leaders Goring on Saturday, Arundel moved two points closer to second-from-bottom Henfield.

Arundel were dismissed for just 143 as Geoff Stothert top-scored with 44 but only three other players made double figures.

Goring's Ross Brown took 5-43 and Matt Keen grabbed 3-15 before Goring reached their target in 49.2 overs.

After slipping to 61-3, Dan Pittham hit 44 before Sam Thorns and Ellis Woolley got Goring home.

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