Hughes laments 'near misses' and 'important mistakes' as Slinfold slip to narrow defeat

Having beat Pagham the previous week, Jonathan Hughes’ side failed to make it back-to-back wins and secure a result that would have lifted them out of the bottom two.

Batting first at Lyons Road, Findon posted 226-5 in their 45 overs as captain Bradley Bridson led the way with 66.

In reply, Nabeel Nilamdeen (40) helped Slinfold to 135-6, before a sixth-wicket stand of 83 between Sean Overton (40*) and Kemar Small (35*) took them to 218-6, just eight runs short of victory.

Hughes said: “The game was one of near misses and how important little mistakes can be with regards to winning a game. It was a game we could have won but ultimately didn’t due to a couple of mistakes in the field which let them score ten to 12 more runs than they should have scored.

Batting, we regrouped well after being 1 for 2 in the first over to get to 87-3 in reasonable time to enable us to have a platform to challenge for the victory and despite the best efforts of our middle order the Findon bowlers had just enough guile to prevent us from winning.

“We now have a tough game away to leaders Goring, but Worthing have an equally tough trip to Findon who will be looking to capitalise on any mistakes that Goring make in the season run in.

“We can only focus on ourselves and will be trying to get as many points as we can over the next three games to close the nine-point gap between Worthing and ourselves.”