Ifield bowlers cannot prevent 72-run defeat

Skipper Jack Groves won the toss and elected to bowl first but Hastings’ openers Joe Lamb and Elliot Hooper made a solid start and the score had progressed to 77 before the breakthrough came when Hooper was LBW to Jigga Parekh for 50.

Further wickets quickly followed as the Ifield spinners Parekh and Kedarnath found their rhythm and 77 for 1 soon became 107 for 5 and Ifield were in the ascendancy.

Hastings dug in as runs became hard to come by and Ifield strived for more wickets.

Jake Woolley made a crucial 38 off 70 balls as more wickets fell around him but when he was caught by Sam Dorrington off Kedarnath with the score on 159 for 8 Ifield sensed they could finish the innings off quickly.

The home side were convinced they had new batsman Barton caught behind without scoring but the umpire didn’t agree and the ninth wicket went onto make 37 crucial runs that took Hastings total to 196 for 8 off of their 53 overs.

The Ifield wickets were shared equally between Parekh and Kedarnath.

Ifield’s batting has been their Achilles heel but they got off to a reasonable start with a new opening partnership of Matt Atkins and Sam Dorrington and the score had reached 28 when Atkins was caught for 12.

But unfortunately the wicket of Dorrington quickly followed and then the wickets of Jack Groves, Joe Cooke and Graeme Dean all fell with the score on 36 and yet again Ifield were in serious batting trouble at 36 for 5.

Guru Kedarnath seemed a touch unlucky for the second week running with a LBW decision when only on 4 and then Joe Smith was caught at point also for 4 to leave the side on 51 for 7.

Coming in at number 8 Daniel Groves carried on where he left off the previous week in the T20 Cup and supported by Simon Hickey the momentum started shifting back towards the home side with Groves interspersing sensible defence with some more big hitting particularly against Hooper who he despatched for 30 in just 2 overs.

The 58-run partnership was broken when Hickey (7) didn’t play a shot to spinner O’Brien and was out LBW and then with the score on 114 Groves mistimed one and was caught for an excellent 56 off 34 balls.

Pratik Patel(2) and Parekh (10) at least got Ifield into bonus point territory but the final total of 124 was well short of the target and Daniel Groves aside the Ifield batsman need to start finding some form quickly.

Credit to Hastings bowlers Adam Barton and Jed O’Brien who both picked up five wickets.

Ifield travel to bottom of the table Crowhurst Park next Saturday.

Don’t miss out on all the latest breaking news where you live.

Here are four ways you can be sure you’ll be amongst the first to know what’s going on.

1 Make this website your homepage

2 Like our Facebook page at facebook.com/pages/Sport-Sussex

3 Follow us on Twitter @SportSussex

4 Register with us by clicking on ‘sign in’ (top right corner). You can then receive our daily newsletter AND add your point of view to stories that you read here.

And do share with your family and friends - so they don’t miss out!