Roffey get title defence underway with victory from jaws of defeat

The home side were close to defeat, only levelling the scores on 270 on the final ball and winning by virtue of losing fewer wickets.

Roffey captain Matt Davies admitted that his side’s performance wasn’t of the highest quality, but was satisfied to at least scrape a victory on the opening day.

He said: “It was a disappointing all-round performance. We batted well but our fielding performance was average; however, we performed poorly and still got the result which is the most important thing.”

Last season’s champions chose to field first and were unable to stamp their authority on the game and were struggling to break through the away team’s early batting order.

Bryce Hounsome (36) and Liam Smith (35) put on 62 for the first wicket, while Chris Grammer (36) boosted the score to 167-5.

Jack Chopping then led the way for his side scoring 69 not out, guiding his team to a total of 270-8.

With the ball, Leigh Harrison, George Fleming and Luke Barnard all took two wickets apiece. Roffey came out looking to reach target set by the visitors.

An impressive early partnership from Josh Fleming (50) and Jibran Khan of 126 inspired their side to kick on and finish the game with 270-6, thanks to contributions by Chris Webb (24) and Alex Southern (24*).

Khan managed 78 runs off 95 balls before eventually being bowled by Chopping.

Davies was full of praise for Khan and said: “Jib was our stand-out performer, without him it could have been a different story.”

Roffey make the long journey to Bexhill on Saturday and Davies is under no illusions about the difficulty of the game, despite them losing their first match.

He added: “Bexhill is always a difficult place to go as they always play well at home. We are expecting a tough game but if we concentrate on ourselves and on our own game we are confident of coming away with a positive result.”