Roffey reclaim first place after demolishing Cuckfield

The Boars crushed Cuckfield away from home by 150-runs in the Premier Division, and coupled with Brighton’s loss to Middleton now find themselves back top of the table.

They lead Brighton by 14 points and third-placed Eastbourne by 15, Horsham are fourth and 43 points behind.

Roffey hit 249-9 declared off 53.2 overs thanks to a century from Theo Rivers.

Cuckfield were skittled all out for 99 off 33.3 overs with Australian Sam Whiteman (24) topscoring - but it was his fellow countryman Ben Manenti that stole the show, grabbing an eight-wicket haul.

Davies said: “There’s still plenty to play for, we’ve still got five big games coming up.

“As we’re sitting in first place we’ve got to be considered favourites now heading into the one-day cricket after this week which is what we pride ourselves on.

“We’ve got a lot of tough games coming up and there’s a lot of good sides in the league so we’ll just keep taking it one game at a time.”

Electing to bat first, a 69-run second-wicket knock from Jibran Khan (12) and Rivers put Roffey on 97-2.

Khan soon fell to the prolific Josh Hayward (5-79) but Rivers and Rohit Jagota (51) put on a 96-run third-wicket stand before the loss of Rivers.

Jagota also lost his wicket to Hayward but a quickfire 33 from Jibran Khan pushed the Boars to their final total.

In reply, Manenti was at his devastating best as he finished with figures of 8-39 as Cuckfield’s innings never really got going.

The only bright spots for the hosts were Whiteman’s knock and Haywards’ 20 batting at nine, but Roffey bowled with great discipline and they were rewarded by bowling the hosts all out for less than a hundred.

Davies added: “We had a big chat after the Preston Nomads game and I think we admitted that we hadn’t been at our best in the last four or five weeks so that was something we were looking to address.

“We’ve not had many wins at Cuckfield’s ground since we’ve been promoted to the Premier League, so to win there in the manner that we did was very pleasing and it was an added bonus to hear that Brighton had lost at Middleton.

“I think it took us about 12 overs to get the first wicket but once we took the first wicket, for about ten overs after that, we were awesome.”

Up next for Roffey is a home league game against Ifield in the league on Saturday.