Further information

Horsham CC entered the annual Sussex Junior Cricket Festival and were placed in the Bowl competition with 16 other teams from the top clubs in the county. They took part in four matches in a longer format of 70 over matches in the one week. During the week Horsham managed a winning draw against Cuckfield followed by victories over Ansty, Middleton and Chichester taking them to the top of the league stage of the cricket week. The highlights of the week were Rahul Tangirala’s fantastic first century against Middleton and Liam Hughes’ five wickets all clean bowled for five runs against Chichester.

The top two teams went through to the final and as Cuckfield also won their three other matches they came second meaning a re-match from the start of the week. Cuckfield won the toss and decided to bat first and Horsham got the early breakthrough with Liam Hughes removing Cuckfield’s very talented batsman Henry Rogers. This brought in Wilf Pickard who proceeded to play a superb innings keeping the score ticking over with some excellent drives and pull shots. Horsham managed to keep the wickets falling at the other end with Alfred Haines taking 4 for 20. The Horsham team backed up their bowlers well with some sharp fielding particularly from their wicket keeper Ruben Weide. Pickard managed to get Cuckfield to 148 before he was last man out making 80 after a useful partnership with their no11.
The pitch had proved lively at times when Horsham bowled and Cuckfield’s Henry Rogers came firing in with some short pitched deliveries to the Horsham opening batsmen but they handled the situation very well. They got to 39 before Maxwell Bartlett edged one behind bringing Alfred Haines in to partner Rahul Tangirala who looked at his majestic best. The timing of his shots and his sound defence was very good while Haines provided great support at the other end. Cuckfield tried to break the partnership by bringing Rogers back on early and one wild over took Horsham to over 100. Haines departed shortly afterwards following a run out and the youngest member of the Horsham squad Zan Copleston announced his arrival with a couple of boundaries. Horsham got within 20 of the target when Tangirala was bowled for 64 and just when the crowd were getting tense Copleston decided to get the job done with two further boundaries followed a winning single to see Horsham to a 7 wicket victory with 6 overs to spare and to be crowned Sussex Champions.