Norris' 52 brings derby joy for Ifield

Ifield cruised to a comfortable 126-run home victory over newly-promoted Eagles on the opening day of the new Sussex Cricket League season.
JPCT 160612 Cricket, Roffey v East Grinstead. Roffey batsmen George Flemming left and Mike Norris ENGSUS00220120618171036JPCT 160612 Cricket, Roffey v East Grinstead. Roffey batsmen George Flemming left and Mike Norris ENGSUS00220120618171036
JPCT 160612 Cricket, Roffey v East Grinstead. Roffey batsmen George Flemming left and Mike Norris ENGSUS00220120618171036

The visitors won the toss and asked Ifield to bat first.

The new opening partnership of Ed Sykes and Alex Norrington looked solid enough against the new ball seam and spin attack of Eagles and it took a couple of good deliveries from Shanaz Abdul Raheem and Imran Mehboob to remove both batsman for 5 and 18 respectively.

New signing from Roffey Mike Norris, together with Mahad Ahmed, pushed the score on to 77 before Ahmed fished at one outside his off-stump and was caught for a patient 11.

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Skipper Jack Groves joined Norris and they were able to comfortably accelerate the scoring, but shortly after reaching his 50 Norris skied one and was caught by keeper Rehan Hasan for a well-made 52.

Ifield’s new overseas recruit Dinesh Salunkhe continued to build the total with Groves, but directly after hitting a big six straight down the ground he was undone by a googly from Shanaz Abdul Raheem and was stumped by Hasan for 45.

Pratik Patel, fresh from his good performance the previous week against Horsham in the T20, carried on in the same fashion and with Salunkhe took the score to 177 before the introduction to the attack of Saleem Ali brought about the wicket of Salunkhe for 29.

Patel and Joe Smith took the total past 200 but when Patel was bowled by Atif Ali for 39 the innings was declared on 214 for 8 off 49 overs.

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The Eagles reply got off to the worst possible start when Azam Riyard decided he was going to have a go at every delivery from Pratik Patel and when he finally got bat on ball he nicked the last delivery of the over to keeper Jack Groves to leave the visitors at 0 for 1.

New batsman Tanveer Haider was trapped lbw by Daniel Groves for just 3 and he followed this up by bowling Bashir for 18 to knock the stuffing out of the Eagles top order and leave them on 33 for 3.

Hasan was expertly caught at first slip by Joe Smith for 21 off the bowling of Patel and he picked up his second wicket of the over when Jibran Khan departed without scoring, caught at mid-off by Sachin Patel.

Hisam Ul Hak was bowled for 4 to give Patel his fourth wicket of the innings and at 54 for 6 the game was as good as over and Ifield hadn’t even yet turned to their spinners.

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Salunkhe and Jigga Parekh mopped up the tail with Salunkhe picking up three wickets as Eagles were dismissed for 88.

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