NUNEATON suffered their first defeat of the season as they were beaten by promoted side Four Oaks Saints in the Premier Division of the Warwickshire League on Saturday.
It was another grim day as the weather delayed the start and allowed no real pre-game preparation. Russell Rice lost the toss and Four Oaks skipper Greg Henderson elected to bowl first.
Nuneaton got off to a bad start when James Taplin, who was pushed up the order in the absence of Adam Wilkinson, went early for four with the score on nine from two overs.
Marco Higgins joined Lyndon Topp and started to build a solid platform despite tight bowling from seamers Angus Mathieson and Thomas Holley.
The score ticked along to 74 from 19 overs before Topp was trapped LBW by leg spinner Aaron Khatkar with a possibly harsh decision.
Next man in Ruban Field was then cleaned bowled by Baynes Ridgeway and the good start was undone with the score on 74-3.
Rice joined in-form Higgins and they added 29 before Rice tried for a quick single.
Higgins stayed put and a slip half way down gave the skipper no chance as he was left sitting on his backside and run out for 19.
Once again Nuneaton failed to recover as from the very next ball Higgins was clean bowled by Ridgeway to make it 104-5.
Vice-captain Lee McNeill and Danny Topp rebuilt slightly taking the score to 121, but another run out and Danny was gone.
McNeill then holed out to Holley, bowled by Salman Shah, bringing promising youngsters Jordan Fletcher and Martin Cox to the crease.
Both ran well and added a valuable 22 to move the score to a respectable 152/7 from 39 overs.
In reply, young Four Oaks opener Tom Wright looked solid and hit the ball nicely down the ground.
Fellow opener Alex Perkins looked to grind it out more.
McNeill and Rice opened up but failed to hit the form of the early season. However, when Perkins offered a chance to Rice at mid-on, Chris Lomas put it down when he was on 17 at the time.
There was some consolation as from the same over Rice dismissed Wright for 15. Despite a disappointing start, Nuneaton maintained the spirit Rice is so keen for the team to buy into this season.
Danny Longhorne joined Perkins and they took the score to 83 before Longhorne (20) was bowled by the returning McNeill.
Shah came in but Perkins was the next to go as a super catch by the ever improving Cox, diving forward at mid-off, saw Perkins out for a solid 37.
Martin Sheldon and Shah added 20 before Field took a fine catch again off McNeill to dismiss Sheldon for eight.
At this point Four Oaks decided to take the game to Nuneaton as they went after the spin of Taplin. His first eight overs only went for 20, but the next 3.3 went for 29 to seal the game.
The was one massive moment with a dropped catch on the boundary when they needed 26. A couple of half chances also went down and it was left to Henderson to hit the winning runs and give Four Oaks a first win of the season.
A disappointing day for Nuneaton left them with just four points. However, Rice was keen to look to the positives from a good start to the season.
He said: “We batted well in patches but too many double wicket moments didn’t help us move the score forward. Maybe 175 would have been enough to achieve a better result.
“We fielded well and had excellent spirit but we dropped a few chances that maybe could have swung the game in our favour, especially Perkins, who stuck around for 37 runs from 72 balls and set a foundation for Four Oaks to build on.
“We must learn from that innings and move forward. All in all we have a good team atmosphere and must build on that.”
