Steyning strive against leaders

STEYNING Cricket Club marked their improvement with a solidbatting performance at home to leaders Chichester on Saturday and move into an especially important match this Saturday.

They are at Hastings in a contest in which, says Neil Mansbridge of Steyning: "Thirty points would pull either side away from the relegation zone."

Batsmen Gary Hunt and Simon McNiff will miss the match but opening bowler Jeremy Green may return after cracking a bone in his finger.

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Hunt and McNiff were minor contributors on Saturday while Steyning got a patient opening 34 from Nick Colley, then 53 from Rob Wakeford and 49 from Jibran Khan in their 205 for eight.

Wakeford shared a stand of 44 for the fourth wicket with Jibran, who was out only in the last over, the final Steyning dismissal, when he was stumped while dancing down the wicket in search of his 50.

Mansbridge's perspective was: "We did well to get 205. Not many sides post 200 against Chichester and our batsmen have not been keeping pace with our bowlers lately. But this time they did their job. We batted sensibly and paced it well so we had plenty of wickets at the end.

"At the beginning, we contained their Pakistani Test bowler Fazl-e-Akbar at one end and his one for 81 must have been his worst league figures this season. But there were no free runs at the other end. Especially with spinner Nick Dyer on, who has played World Cup cricket for Scotland.

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"But on that sort of Steyning wicket you need 220 to 240, so 205 was not enough, although it was defendable.

Without Jeremy, Dave Mates bowled well for us but overall we did not bowl enough good balls to take the wickets we needed to be a threat. We needed early wickets to make the inroads to give us a chance in the game.

"After our batsmen doing better this time, we need our bowlers to balance it all up and rediscover their form from the previous weeks."

Mates' figures suffered late in the Chichester innings after an economical opening spell and the leaders won with 12 overs to spare.

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