Dinesh helps Ifield do derby double

The home side won the toss and decided to bat first but Ifield made early inroads with the ball when Pratik Patel dismissed openers Usman Bashir and Razian Razik for 7 and 13 respectively.

Eagles’ skipper Jibran Khan and Rehan Hasan steadied the innings with Hasan in particular looking solid but the introduction of spin led to the wicket of Khan after a sharp catch at slip by Paul Clifford off the bowling of Dinesh Salunkhe.

Hasan continued to look in control and reached a patient 50 while wickets around him fell at regular intervals with Salunkhe the wicket-taker-in-chief, supported by Jigar Parekh.

The Eagles’ innings following precisely the innings of Lindfield the week before with one player standing between them and rolling the opposition over cheaply.

Hasan aside, no other batsman was able to go past 20 and in the end he ran out of partners finishing with a classy undefeated 96 out of a total of 192. Salunkhe finished with excellent figures for Ifield of 6 for 66.

Former Roffey duo Dan Smith, who was making his Ifield debut and Mike Norris handled the pace of ex-Pakistani international Tanvir Ahmed and the swing of Imran Mehboob.

Falah Uddin broke the partnership when Norris was caught at slip by Bashir for 19 and this was quickly followed by Jack Groves being bowled by an in-swinger from Mehboob.

Sam Dorrington was out LBW for 13 and then shortly afterwards Smith fell to the Bashir and Uddin combination after reaching an impressive 57 and suddenly the game was very much in the balance with two new batsmen, Salunkhe and Joe Smith, at the crease and 90 runs still needed.

With sensible batting, the victory target gradually got closer and closer with Eagles having to balance the need for wickets with the need to prevent runs and good game management by the batsmen kept the run-rate just about in reach without having to take too many undue risks.

Salunkhe in particular really had his eye in and was able to start hitting out which pushed the field back allowing singles to be picked up and one big over took Salunkhe past his 50 and victory was secured in the last over with Salunkhe 58 not out and Joe Smith unbeaten on 24.

This was an excellent, tense game played in a good spirit.

Ifield entertain Pagham at Ifield Green this Saturday.