Davies eyes historic fourth straight Roffey title success

Having won the Sussex Cricket League for three years running, the Crawley Road side are looking to add more to their tally with another historic win.

Skipper Davies has had his side training hard during the pre-season, despite being away in Australia where he has been playing during the winter, his side have been putting in the work to ensure they retain their title.

Davies said: “We know if we perform to our best, we’ll beat anyone in the league.

“Our season aim is to retain the Premier League title and possibly win the T20 or the National Village Cup.

“It’s been a good pre-season, we’ve trained hard and have been outside for three weeks now. Everyone feels prepared.”

With the skipper setting high expectations for his side, you’d think there would be a lot of pressure on Roffey to do well, but Davies has once again said they are not feeling any sort of strain.

He continued: “We’ve got the team to do well in either of the competitions, we don’t feel too much pressure, the real pressure is from ourselves. After winning three titles in a row, you realise what sort of team you are part of and you expect a lot from yourselves, but we don’t really take note of the pressure from other teams around us.”

Other teams will be looking to get one over the reigning champions, with new signings from overseas, although restrictions on visas have been tightened hugely by the league this season.

Another change will also see 50-50 over matches at the start and end of the season.

Player-wise, Roffey have retained their complete title-winning squad from last season.

However, they have also brought in one addition from Crawley Eagles, Jibran Khan, and are still awaiting news on the clearance of their overseas player.

On the addition of Khan, Davies added: “He’s a top-order batsman who will further strengthen our batting depth.

Another huge boost for Roffey will be keeping the expertise of Stuart Whittingham among the ranks – he is still registered for them despite playing for Sussex.

Roffey’s season begins on Saturday when they travel to Ansty in the second round of the Gray-Nicolls T20 Cup.

They then kick-off their league campaign against Brighton & Hove at Roffey on May 6.

They were meant to get under way on Sunday in the first round of the National Village Cup, but opponents Bromley conceded as they were unable to raise a side.