BASEMENT BOYS CONFIDENT OF PULLING CLEAR

His team lie nine points adrift of the plummeting Haywards Heath two thirds of the way into the campaign but the fact that they have accrued more bonus points than anyone else in recording a batch of narrow defeats reveals a far more positive story.

Phillimore said: "I'm sure we can get off the bottom. We are certainly Haywards Heath's equal if not better. I shall be drumming it into them. The winning habit will help. If we can get a win who knows? Since Littlehampton (when Bexhill were thumped by eight wickets four weeks ago) we have batted quite well and we have played well. It was possibly a one off. I think every club has at least one of those games during the year. But as a team we don't bat quickly enough, we don't put the opposition bowlers under enough pressure. At the moment we need to score bigger than we are and our fielding and catching could be better.

"I'm not pleased to be bottom but I'm pleased with the performances. Apart from the Littlehampton game we have been in virtually every match - we have not been outplayed and we've been very competitive. We are just lacking that little something to win games -we're nearly there."

Bexhill look forward to their second fixtureless Saturday of the season tomorrow - an anomaly caused by the odd number of teams in the league.