Ifield Cricket Club skipper reveals secret of their success after securing promotion

Dean’s side beat title rivals Haywards Heath on Saturday to claim the Sussex Cricket League Division 2 title and ensure Premier Division cricket next season.

Ifield have lead the way for most of the season and Dean is proud of his side.

"It’s been a long, tough season especially as we only came up last year from Division 3,” he said. "The boys are absolutely buzzing and they should be proud of themselves. I think the reason why we were successful is because we managed to keep the same core team for most of the year, along with putting in effort twice a week at training . We also stuck to our game plan week in, week out and always believed in ourselves no matter the situation.”

He added: “I think we started to think about winning the league about five or six games ago. We realised that although we had lost a few games we were capable of beating the top sides.”

Dean picked out Sri Lankan overseas Raminda Wijesooriya, who is the division’s secon d top run scorer with 861 runs, Dan Smith who has scored 690 runs and new signing Fazlan Nizamdeen, who has taken 39 wickets – the most in the division – as the top performers. Ifield will be looking to finish the season with a win when they host already relegated Rottingdean on Saturday.

Elsewhere Ram CC are top of Division 5 West going into the final game of the season. Crawley Eagles have been relegated from Division 3 West.