RUGBY are still in the hunt for a first Warwickshire League Premier Division win since May 1, after suffering a seven-wicket humbling at the hands of Sutton Coldfield.
Matthew Ewer’s side performed admirably at the crease to score 225-9 at Rectory Park, but simply had no answer to the hosts’ Lee Thomason (104 not out) and Raul Ram (70 no), who smashed their way to victory inside 40 overs.
Winning the toss and batting first, the visitors stumbled to 36-3 but Charlie Robards (74) dragged his side through some tricky moments during the innings.
With the middle order failing to provide much in the way of support to Robards, the departure of Rugby’s talisman left them 157-7 but number eight Abhay Lal (55no) stepped up to the task with a flourish. Smashing two sixes and six shots into the boundary, Lal helped push his side’s tally over the 200-run mark to leave Sutton Coldfield with a more daunting task than they had initially been expected.
They slipped to 57-3, as Ewer (2-50) removed a couple of early batsmen, but in Thomas and Ram, coming in at number four and five respectively, proved more than capable of carrying their side.
They thumped a total of 21 boundary hits and three sixes between them as Sutton comfortably got to their target in 39.4 overs.
Second-bottom Rugby will host Bablake at Webb Ellis Road on Saturday aiming for an upturn in fortunes.
WILLOUGHBY’S shaky form continued with a crushing 110-run loss at Mears Ashby in their Northamptonshire League Division Six clash last weekend.
After the hosts smashed 259-7, Willoughby were below par in their reply to slide to their second defeat this term.
Michael Pennington top-scored with 81 runs for Mears Ashby on a day when the visitors’ bowlers were made to work for their wickets, Mark Fell (2-41) and Scott Cluley (2-44) both taking a couple each.
But with opener Chaitanya Kurusala (47) the only Willoughby batsman to emerge with some credit, the visitors were downed by the 33rd over.
Desborough Town Seconds are the visitors to Woolscott Road on Saturday.
