DROITWICH Spa captain Max Young says his first half-century of the season meant very little, after a two-wicket loss to Burghill, Tillington & Weobley in Worcestershire County League Division One.
Spa were dismissed for 126 in the 31st over, but looked to be in with a chance of a win when reducing the hosts to 77-8.
But an unbeaten 53 from Mark Preece (30) and Alex Hedges (19) condemned the visitors to a sixth loss of the season.
Young underlined the importance of scoring runs, and said that improving their batting will be key to lifting Droitwich Spa out of relegation trouble.
“Our bowling and fielding was excellent, but our batting was less than ideal – for want of a better word,” he said.
“If we could score more runs we’d win a lot more games, bowling has been great so far, we’ve kept opponents to low totals – but we can’t blame anyone but ourselves for our results.”
The impact of bowler Phil Thomas, who took five wickets for 28 conceded, and Young’s total of 58 at the bat, were the two standout performances for Droitwich.
Young lauded Thomas’ performance, but was unable to take much consolation from his own display – despite his total being the top score of the game.
“He’s very important to us, we miss him when he’s not there, he’s a great asset to our side.
“The half-century doesn’t mean a lot in hindsight, it’s hard to enjoy it after losing the game – the result was the more important thing.”
Droitwich were put into bat after the hosts won the toss and lost opener Martyn Davies (9) at 24-1, who was soon followed by Stuart Bryan (0) and Kieran Wilkins (0) into the pavilion.
Rhys John and Paul Bryan also hit zero scores as Young continued to lead the way with the bat, but was eventually helped by David Huntbatch (21) – with whom he formed a partnership of 54.
Huntbatch and Young were gone by the seventh and eighth wickets respectively, while Phil Thomas added an unbeaten 18.
However, tailenders David Stephens (1) and Adam Keen (0) were unable to bolster the score further, leaving Droitwich with a total of 126 to defend.
Thomas took out five of the opening six Burghill batsman, dismissing Jacob James (9), Owen Morgan (14), Hamish Cooke (0), Ben Parkinson (7) and Sam Williams (0), while Young removed Edward Symonds (0), to leave the hosts on 41-6.
Tim Walsh (15) and Clive Chadhani (16) took Burghill to 77-8, but the unbeaten combination of Preece and Hedges ended Spa’s hopes of a victory.
Spa will have Jack Eaton, Jez Hanson and Carl Thomson back for their home game against relegation rivals Bredon on Saturday (1pm), but will be without Thomas after his bowling heroics.
