A truly memorable weekend for Petworth Park Cricket, with all 3 teams winning their games this weekend! The Men's 1st XI gave us a flying start on Saturday against Pagham 3rds, with the Women's XI winning on Sunday morning against Billlingshurst, then to round off a already brilliant weekend, the Men's Sunday XI took a commanding 5 wicket win at Boxgrove.

Take a read through our match reports from the weekend!

Saturday 28th May - 1st XI vs Pagham 3rds - PPCC victory by 3 wickets

On yet another glorious sunny day in the park the scene was set for a high scoring game, with a beautiful track prepared by Lee Farquahar, and a fast outfield mowed by Jim Geal!

Pagham 3rds skipper won the toss and made the straight forward call to bat first. After 10 overs of brutal, if slightly unorthodox, hitting from opening batsman Dawson Drake, Petworth were reeling at 72/0, deeply regretting a couple of drop catches.

Great moments can turn a game around, and in this case it was James Gillet's outstanding one handed grab at point to remove the danger man. From there, PPCC slowly squeezed the Pagham middle order, drying up the runs and taking regular wickets. Jamie Dunstan took an very impressive 6/24 from 8, while Sagar Desai and Connor Eales picked up two wickets each.

Having bowled out the visitors for 174, it was time to enjoy a stunning cricket tea in the newly reopened pavilion club room. The fabulous Olga's cakes went down a treat, and fuelled up the PPCC batting line up to chase down the total.

The run chase may look relatively straightforward in the book, with the required rate never really getting above 4.5, but it wasn't without some tension. A special nod goes to Richard Ivison who made his first PPCC half century, driving the ball nicely and putting away the bad ones well. His partnership of 95 with Gus Fletcher (37) was the key platform and, despite some nervy late moments as Pagham fought back to take middle order wickets, the victory was brought home thanks largely to the assured knock of 25 not out from PPCC newcomer Ben Walsh.

A great win, that would have been hard to predict after 10 overs!

29th May - Petworth and Fernhurst Womens vs Billingshurst Womens

Well done to our Petworth Women's side who teamed up with Fernhurst Flames for their game against Billingshurst Women at a well-contested league game at Fernhurst.

Fernhurst and Petworth won the toss and elected to field, and bowled well to restrict Billingshurst to 45 off their 15 overs, with a special mention to Des for her two wickets.

Des continued her great form, scoring 25 off 13 deliveries, with Clare Smith also picking up a solid 22 to take the game away from Billingshurst early on. Fernhurst/Petworth ended up scoring 145 off their 15 overs, with an excellent batting performance to win the game comfortably in the end.

29th May - Petworth Sunday XI vs Boxgrove - Petworth win by 5 wickets

Boxgrove CC hosted the PPCC Sunday XI this weekend, and the side were keen to complete a winning weekend after both the 1st XI and the Women's Softball team's victories.
Bowling first on a slightly unpredictable wicket, PPCC's bowlers managed to bowl the hosts out on the final ball of the innings for 165 in a 35 over match. On PPCC debut, Kirah Amroziak bowled some beautifully flighted spin and took 4 well deserved wickets for just 12 runs in her 5 over spell.

Matt Benham took an absolutely spectacular catch at gully which may be hard to beat as the champagne moment of the whole season.

In reply, Dan Harbert, opening up the innings, scored his first ever half century in any cricket, to carry his bat for 71. Some aggressive hitting into the leg side and later on, as he grew in confidence, some nice straight shots helped him to achieve his goal of 5 years since taking up the sport. It's a well deserved payback for the huge amount of time and commitment he's put into his game.

To help get the job done, John 'barefoot' Fairweather came into the middle with the score on 83/4, and proceeded to launch a brutal assault on the Boxgrove bowlers, scoring 39 of just 19 balls. The guru of inner calm briefly unleashed the raging beast, showing absolutely no mercy.

Well skippered by Tom Creed, getting ready for his spell as T20 skipper this summer - everyone got a game and PPCC won - a perfect Sunday!