Blackheath travelled to North East Sussex in their first cup outing of the season, with a much changed team.
Ivan Thomas' and Daniel Bell-Drummond's involvement with Kent, Warren Lee's game for the Unicorns (also in Sussex), Dipayan Paul's game for the MCC Young Cricketers and Mohammad Ashraful's ineligibility meant that opportunities arose for youngsters Charlie Speller, Ahmed Akbari and Mehdi Abbas. The experienced Stuart Fern also came in to add some steel to the Blackheath middle order.
On a ground that had seen no play for the previous 3 weeks due to wet weather and a used and patchy pitch that had seen 74 all out play 49 all out the day before, it may have seemed an odd decision for Chris Willetts to elect to bat first on calling correctly at the toss.
Nonetheless, a slightly new-look opening pair of Craig Wood and Mehdi Abbas strode to the wicket and Willetts could be forgiven for feeling a little let down as both perished within the opening overs to airborne pulls straight to a long mid-wicket boundary.
Charlie Speller and Jamal Patterson then regrouped to add a significant stand of just over 40 before Patterson tried to go aerial and was caught by a diving extra-cover.
Speller perished shortly after for a well compiled 29 which brought Chris Willetts and Stuart Fern together. The pair compiled a gritty and industrious partnership becoming of their respective Midland and northern up-bringings before Fern was neatly caught at the wicket.
Willetts then held the middle-lower order together through the last 10 overs and accelerated the scoring to secure a total of 185 which looked extremely competitive.
The second innings started disastrously for the home side as the East Grinstead opener ran himself out off the first ball of Jahid Ahmed's opening over. The former Essex man delivered an opening spell of 8 accurate overs for just 17 runs which included 4 maidens and whilst this put the home side way behind the necessary rate, it was the introduction of Mehdi Abbas which brought the other East Grinstead opener an opportunity to join his partner in front of the widescreen TV that was beaming in dramatic live footage from the Ethiad Stadium, the Stadium of Light, the Hawthorns and the Britannia Stadium.
Abbas followed his breakthrough up with 2 further wickets which secured him impressive figures of 3-23 from his 9 overs.
The ever reliable James Hands bowled his 9 overs to a short leg-side boundary for 30 runs and the part-time slow left armers of Chris Willetts harvested 1-30 from his 9 overs as the pair slowly quashed any hope of a home victory.
The reintroduction of Ahmed Akbari brought a further wicket but by then the tie was effectively over and Blackheath left Sussex with a 42 run victory - an impressive margin against a near full-strength opposition, in a low scoring encounter.
Blackheath now travel to the familiar climes of Tunbridge Wells in the 2nd round of the competition, on Sunday 20th May.
