Brighton and Hove stay top of the Shepherd Neame Sussex Cricket League despite defeat at Hastings, who are now their nearest rivals.

The bottom two clubs both won, Haywards Heath for the third time in three weeks and Bexhill for the first time this season.

It was only good batting from the lower order that saved Brighton and Hove from an embarrassing total at Horntye Park against Hastings.

Patrick Spencer hit 58 not out, Tim Howe 30 and Richard Spink 20 not out in a score of 180-8 declared as John Morgan took 5-37 and Tim van Noort 2-42.

Hastings had little difficulty cruising to their fourth League victory of the campaign as they reached 182-3, George Campbell making 83 and South African Mourne van Wyk 53.

Runs were hard to come by at Crow-

borough where the home side made 186-9 declared in 65 overs against Horsham. Richard Jackson batted patiently to be fifth out for 51 and Chris Roxburgh made 31. David Briance was the pick of the visitors' bowling with 2-32 and sharp fielding produced three run-outs.

The Horsham batsmen never picked up the pace and at stumps had reached 169-8 from 56 overs, Andy Beer making 43 and Shane Jurgensen 31 not out.

For Crowborough, skipper Andy Cornford grabbed 4-48 and Richard Jackson took 3- 40. But Pakistani seamer Naeem Akhtar was not able to bowl because of a back injury.

It was also difficult to score at the Saffrons where Haywards Heath beat Eastbourne by 71 runs after making 182 all out from 61.2 overs. David Wood hit 43, Steve Moore 35 and Graham Hart 32.

For Eastbourne, Richard Smith took 5-30 and there were two wickets apiece for Roger Myall and Paul Hacker.

The home side then tumbled to 111 all out as Andy Wellfare took 3-9, Hugo Southwell 3-25 and Doug Frame 2-16.

Bexhill won for the first time this season in by 51 runs at Chichester where they were bowled out for 168 but that proved enough.

Richard Matthews made 37, Khirat Damani took 4-47 and Neil Budden grabbed his 300th League wicket with 3-28.

Chichester then crashed to 117 all out despite 35 not out from John Edwards, Stuart Collier taking 3-25 and Rakesh Patel 3-7.