Rive – We’ll look to bounce back

Littlehampton needed to take eight more points than Wisborough Green in the final games of the Sussex League Division 3 West season to stay up. But Littlehampton went down by 41 runs at Bognor Regis, while Wisborough Green lost at home as both of the bottom two finished the day with 11 points.

Rive said: “We want to bounce straight back up and, hopefully, all of the squad will stay together.

“You can look at the early stage of the season when there were four games that we should have won and, maybe, at times our inexperience cost us because we’re a young side.

“We had Middleton nine wickets down and lost, we had Wisborough Green nine wickets down and lost and we lost to Pagham from a winning position. If we’d won one of those games, we’d have stayed up. We’re the first side to be relegated from Division 3 West since relegation came in, after Henfield and then Arundel were reprieved.

“The West Sussex Invitation League isn’t as strong so, hopefully, we can do well, although we know that Portslade and East Preston will both be strong.”

Rive won the toss and elected to bowl on Saturday but Bognor made a strong start as they put on 84 for their opening wicket between Max Ashmore (22) and Rob Willway, who hit 75, before he was second man out with the score on 127.

Littlehampton then took three more quick wickets to get Bognor 139-5 but Sam Taylor smashed 62 to boost the home side’s total and they finished their 53 overs on 254-8.

Steve Godfrey led the way with 4-72 off 13 overs for Littlehampton, while Amit Midha picked up 2-49.

Littlehampton lost wickets at regular intervals in their reply, although Michael Askew (31) and Amjad Mohsin (37) did put on 50 for the fourth wicket.

Askew, who finished with 479 league runs, fell with the score on 123, before Mohsin was the first victim of Rob Willway’s hat-trick with the score on 133.

Despite a 49-run last-wicket stand between Jordan Farrell and Ryan Budd, Littlehampton were all out for 213 and Rive said: “We probably allowed them to get 30 runs too many as we’d have wanted to be chasing around 220.”

Littlehampton’s 2nd XI tied their final match of the season at home to Bognor in Sussex League 2nd XI Division 3 West on Saturday.

Paul Hewitt hit 66 and Nathan Perry 42 as Littlehampton scored 204-6 from 53 overs.

Bognor finished their reply on 204-9 as George Kitchen took 4-44 and Will Kitchen grabbed 3-25.