Sidley captain's caution is justified

The Gullivers supremo has stressed all along that 2004 will be a difficult season for the club and refused to get carried away even after an encouraging eight wicket win over Haywards Heath seven days previously.

But the Littlehampton bowlers, who combined discipline with dynamism, must take much of the credit for the fulfilment of Woodroffe's forecast as they set up a seven-wicket win.

"There were a couple of misjudgements and a couple of bits of bad luck but there was some very good bowling by them," was the captain's assessment. "They really did exploit the conditions and you've got to hand it to them. It was just one of those days. Looking back on it if I had had my chance again I probably would have bowled first.

"We chased a decent score the week before but we've not had a lot of really hard match practice and at times it showed on Saturday when we were batting. But we probably learnt more on Saturday than we did the week before against Haywards Heath."

Perhaps the early pointers suggested this wasn't going to be one of Sidley's better days as Tyrone Wildman dragged on a rare short-pitched delivery in the first over and Jonathan Haffenden was run out during the next.

And it was simply too much to expect to ask the jet-lagged Faisal Naveed, who only arrived in the country at half past three that morning, to bail them out of trouble on this occasion. Nobody else came to the rescue either although Chris Hunnisett hit 20 and Chris Deeprose looked good in making 12 not out down the order.

Gary Tester (5-34) and Luke Vintner (3-30) did the damage as Sidley were dismissed for 84.

The "encouraging" feature to emerge from the match though was the spirit Sidley showed in the field. Although defending an inadequate total, there was no suggestion of simply giving up as they made high-riding Littlehampton work for their runs. Led by Peter King (2-21) they posed a genuine test of the opposition's batting on an easing pitch.

Woodroffe continued: "It was really good the spirit we showed in the second half. They had to work really hard for it and we must have beaten the bat at least as many times as they did. Although the score doesn't reflect it, I think it's a bit harsh to say they were 29 points better than us."