HANLEY Castle & Upton suffered their first defeat of the season going down by four wickets at home to Brintons on Saturday in the Worcestershire County League Division Five.

HANLEY CASTLE & UPTON v BRINTONS

After frantic efforts to get the pitch playable due to the heavy overnight rain Hanley & Upton were asked to bat first on a wet wicket.

The opening pair of Heath (19) and Williams (9) were surprised by the zip and bounce the wicket displayed and struggled to survive the opening overs with bodies, as well as wickets, intact. Both openers departed in the 15th over with the score on 30. Mathews (54) and Rawlings (11) found the going just as tough and when Rawlings was dismissed the score was only 44 in the 27th over.

Gradually with a drying wind and sun the pitch started to dry out and Heeley (31) joined Mathews in a partnership of 78 until Heeley was superbly caught on the mid-wicket boundary. Mathews completed a well-constructed 50 and then was unlucky to receive a low ball.

Wickets then tumbled at a fast rate in the quest for runs and the innings closed at 157-8 with the wicket now drying out to a flat, even paced strip. Hanley had added 110 runs in the last 13 overs.

The Brintons openers Jones and Maiden had none of the difficulties experienced by Hanley and found batting to their liking. Jones departed first, well caught at the wicket by Heath.

Wickets started to fall at regular intervals but due to the now perfect batting conditions the Hanley bowlers were unable to extract the movement required to cause enough problems to worry the batsmen. Robinson (2-21) bowled a superb spell of 12 overs and was supported by some fine fielding.

Brintons finally hit the winning runs with five balls to go leaving Hanley & Upton with only four points and reflecting on the fact that the match was decided by the toss of the coin.