Batting collapses to blame as Slinfold beat by new leaders Findon

The away team, who were missing five players from the win over Pagham the previous week, came up well short of chasing down Findon’s total of 226-8.

Having won the toss, Slinfold captain Jonathan Hughes felt their best chance of victory was to insert their hosts.

But a number of starts throughout the order along with 52 from Harry Metters and 39 from Glenn Bridson saw Findon post a competitive total.

Hughes said: “Whilst I could not fault the effort of the players throughout our time in the field, we found wickets hard to come by with the majority of the Findon batsmen making decent contributions on what was a very placid pitch.

“The bowlers stuck at their task well with Thivagar Jeyachandran taking 3-49 towards the back end of the innings.

“Kemar Small bowled with a lot of effort for his 3-63 off 17, and I was particularly pleased with young Jack Haines whose figures of 2-24 off seven overs were a good return.”

In reply, Slinfold made an opening stand of 41 as Hughes (13) and Cameron Scott (30) started well, before the latter was trapped lbw by the dangerous Liam Freeman, who claimed 6-42.

Scott was one of four wickets to fall for just five runs, and although they climbed from, 46-4 to 94-5, five wickets then fell for another 26 runs.

Hughes added: “With regards to the batting, again a good start was made with the score on 41 when Cameron Scott was out for a well made 30. His wicket was the catalyst for a collapse with the Findon bowlers taking advantage of the deteriorating pitch and variable bounce.”

Slinfold now host second-place Goring on Saturday.