Young Cuckfield sides give superb account of themselves in Sussex Festival week

In the week, they drew with Roffey (needing just 1 more wicket), defeated Portslade comfortably and then had two nail-biting ‘late in the game’ wins against Lewes Priory and Horley. Henry Rogers starred with a 100, 70 and 50, whilst many other players made important contributions.

In the final against a strong Saint James’s side, they had them struggling at 32-4, before a 100+ fifth wicket partnership enabled them to reach an above par 221-9. Cuckfield’s bowling star was their player of the week, Theo Barker with 3-12 off 7 overs. In reply, despite 50 from Josh Downey and 42 from Tom Hay, they were chasing a few too many but finished on a creditable 163-6, thus losing by 58 runs.

Despite the reduced cricket during the lockdown, Cuckfield’s juniors have played in several festivals and matches and many of the youngsters feature in Cuckfiled’s five adult teams; hence the future looks strong for the club.

It was third time unlucky for the Cuckfield under 14 team at the Sussex Junior Cricket Festival bowl final held at Middleton. After battling through some very tough games against Worthing and Lingfield to reach the final for the third year in succession, Cuckfield hoped to avenge last year’s loss to Middleton and Bognor in a ‘bowl-off’ forced upon the teams due to a waterlogged pitch.

This year, Cuckfield lost captain and leading run scorer Henry Rogers to a stunning diving catch in the second over. This brought a period of rebuilding before a swashbuckling innings of 59 from Adhi Jawahar took Cuckfield to a respectable score of 150 after their 40 overs. In reply, Middleton lost two early wickets but then regrouped exceptionally well and, despite Cuckfield battling to the end, Middleton prevailed by 8 wickets.

This ended a fantastic but frustrating week for this wonderfully consistent team who will aim to go one better next year.