PERSHORE narrowly failed to defeat Droitwich in Sat-urday's Worcestershire Cou-nty League Division One game at The Bottoms.

Trevor Ridings invited the visitors to bat but a steady opening partnership of 65 between Stuart Bryan and Geoff Ford saw Droitwich off to a good start.

After Martin Johnson made the initial breakthrough, the visiting batsmen failed to capitalise and only Scott Walker really troubled a home attack in which Johnson was again outstanding.

The Droitwich innings closed on 197 with one ball to spare of their allotted 50 overs, Johnson bowling without a break and returning superb figures of 7-71.

Pershore lost the early wicket of Lea Hawkes and it was again left to Stephen Cooper to atte-mpt to hold the reply together.

In tandem with Johan Coetsee, the home side appeared to be in a position to force victory. However, the introduction of Tom Churchill into the attack made runs harder to come by and the Pershore batsmen were unable to accelerate sufficiently.

It was left to Johnson and some lusty hitting and quick running from David Corfield to get the hosts anywhere near their target but 38 from the last five overs, and 13 off the last, proved too tough a task.

It was a different story 24 hours later when Pershore defeated Feckenham by six wickets in the Sunday League.

The opposition were again inserted, this time by Paul Bozward, and they got off to a flier. However, only South African Roos, with a hard hit 96, managed to dominate and a total of 231-5 was gettable.

The loss of three early wickets left Pershore in trouble at 70-3 but opener Lee Wilks hung around to hit a matchwinning unbeaten century as the chase ended in glorious fashion with five overs and six wickets to spare. Coetsee gave fine support with 54.

Another undefeated ton went unrewarded when Peter Cross was left stranded on 100 as Bretforton were restricted to 207 for 9 in reply to the 229-6 made by Worcester Norton Taverners.