EP and Littlehampton draw entertaining derby

In a tight encounter, EP ended up claiming the winning draw and taking 19 points from the match, while Littlehampton took 14 points.

East Preston needed six to win from the final delivery of the match and Mark Coskin went for the maximum but the ball went away for four and the game ended in a draw.

Littlehampton had been bowled out for 242 as Michael Askew and Chris Heberlein hit half-centuries, before EP finished on 241-9 as Josh Carter struck 64 and Dan Williams 62.

East Preston skipper Andy Reeves said: “It was a great game of cricket, played in a great spirit and everyone enjoyed it.

“We had them in trouble at 40-4 but Chris Heberlein then came in and batted very stylishly and was perhaps a bit unlucky to get out as he went to pull a Mark Coskin delivery and it rolled back on to the stumps and just had enough to knock the bails off.

“At that stage, we still had no bowling points but we managed to get them all out in the end.

“When Josh Carter was the eighth man out, that was probably our chase over and we were holding on for the draw. The win wasn’t really on the cards, although we did finish just one short of the tie and two short of winning.”

Littlehampton captain Dan Rive said: “They were holding on once we got Josh out.

“They needed seven to win off the last over and we needed one wicket and they threw the bat at the last ball when they needed six to win.”

Full report and more pictures in this week’s paper.