Ahsan and Murray boost St Andrews’ hopes of Sussex Cricket League success
St Andrews (Burgess Hill) CC are aiming for success in Division 6 Central of the Sussex Cricket League – with a squad showing a few changes.
Here’s the lowdown from the club ahead of the new season.
First XI captain: Scott Lonsdale
Squad ins and outs since last season: Unfortunately, we’ve lost two big players and personalities from the Saints first XI in the past 12 months, Jobin Abraham and Stevie Cummins, who emigrated to Australia and the US respectively.
We picked up Shoaib Ahsan, who was playing locally for Shabash in the T20 Slam towards the end of last season and looks a find. The experienced Iain Murray, returning after an enforced illness related absence last season, will add to the squad depth.
Hopes for the firsts in Div 6 Central? We ran out of steam a bit towards the end of 2024, ending up sixth after a promising mid-season run of results saw us making a brief run at the promotion spots.
However, it was a generally positive season in which vice-captain Michael Platt top scored in the division. An improvement on that would be the aim, albeit the league looks slightly tougher on paper this time round.
Which other XIs will you be running? We run two other senior sides on a Saturday, in Div 10C and Div 12CN, and a Sunday team that tends to play more at the beginning and end of the season.
Our ladies’ team are entering a fourth year and a partnership with Hurst Ladies should help them be competitive in Division 2 of the Sussex Women’s League. We are also active in the Sussex Slam with two men’s teams and one ladies’ team.
We’re in a bit of rebuild phase with our junior section and do not currently have any junior sides. However, we had 20 All Stars in 2024 and will be running Dynamos for the first time this summer.
We hope this will be a bit of a USP for our club as not many teams in the area are running this programme.
Any other news? Following the sad loss of club legend Peter Goodwin over Christmas following a four-decade association with St Andrews CC, a group of club members are running the Burgess Hill 10K on Monday, May 5 to raise funds for Prostate Cancer UK. You can support their efforts by donating via www.justgiving.com/page/peter-goodwin-1