CRICKET: Hisam shines with 80 as leaders Crawley Eagles win by four runs

Crawley Eagles batsman Hisam Ul-Haq in action.
Picture by Steve Robards — Crawley Eagles batsman Hisam Ul-Haq in action. Picture by Steve Robards

Eagles won the toss and elected to bat. Hisam Ul Haq top scored with 80, well supported by the in-form Usman Bashir with 34.

But a lower-order collapse lead by Mark Pavlovic 4-31 and Fred Bridges 3-44 resulted in the hosts being bowled out for 191.

The visitors’ reply started slowly but an early injury to the Eagles’ star bowler Imran Mehboob boosted Roffey’s chances.

A good partnership between Josh Gander (30) and Mark Pavlovic (22) made things interesting. Wazoomi Wahid was the pick of the bowlers with 3-22.

It all came down to the last over with 12 runs needed with the last pair in.

Rilwan Mohammed was asked to bowl and kept his nerve to see out the game to help the team notch up their fifth win in a row and keep the 100 per cent start to the season.

Eagles will travel to the Nevill sports ground to take on Brighton & Hove 2nd XI on Saturday as the league moves to a time format for the next phase of games.