Littlehampton fall from top position

Littlehampton fell to fourth place with a losing draw after they finished their innings on 140-7 in reply to Southwater’s 205-9.

Arundel took over at the top, while West Chiltington and St Andrews also climbed above Littlehampton, who were left to rue losing three wickets in the space of eight balls early in their innings.

Littlehampton captain Dan Rive said: “The three wickets in eight balls knocked the stuffing out of our run chase.

“We didn’t want to be 50-odd for five if we kept having a go, although it wasn’t a case of battening down the hatches, they just bowled in the right areas.

“Towards the end of our innings, we lost a clatter of wickets trying to get up to 150 and another bonus point as we knew the game was safe but they set negative fields even when we needed 120 from 15 overs, so there was no encouragement for us to go for the win.

“We were happy to be chasing 200, although were maybe looking at chasing a bit fewer at one point. They scored 35 off the first five overs but only reached their 100 after about 33 overs, so we pegged them back well.”

Full story in this week’s paper.