Frustration for Papplewick & Linby as rain halts hopes of win over Plumtree

It saw them drop two places in their title chase while wins for Cavaliers & Carrington and Kimberley Institute above them stretched those rivals away from them, but skipper Ben Trevor-Jones said it could have been worse.

“We could have come out of that game with no points to be honest. We were behind the Duckworth in the field for a long time, so we were thankful for the four points eventually,” he said.

“We played some really good cricket with the bat. It's never easy to bat in those type of innings where there are a couple of rain delays and the overs keep getting shortened.

“You are trying to set the pace with the bat and each time you have to reset. So I think 236-5 off 40 overs was a really good effort and I can't fault us from the batting perspective.

“With the ball with the certain rain coming in the afternoon it felt like it had turned into a shorter game as you knew you were going to go off at some stage and it became a balancing act between playing the game for what it was and also playing the Duckworth-Lewis.

“Ironically it ended up being split straight down the middle. That felt like a relatively fair result.”

He continued: “I definitely don't feel we could have done a whole lot more. They batted really well for their first 10 overs and probably earned their four points as well.

“Could we have done more with the ball to keep them to the Duckworth-Lewis? Absolutely we could.

“We just have to look at ways to get better. This is a super-competitive league at the moment.

“We made one slip-up against Cavaliers then only got four points on Saturday and you end up dropping two places.

“It is cut-throat, but it's great. It's what it should be all about. At the moment the team who wants it the most is probably going to end up getting it and it's a great league to be part of.”

Put into bat, Papplewick reached 236-5 in 40 overs, having had a stoppage for rain in the middle of their innings and another near the end.

Callum Mckenzie top-scored with 57, Curtis Mitchell adding 45, Brent Williams 27 and both Harry Ratcliffe and Ben Bhabra ending unbeaten on 28 apiece.

In reply, Plumtree rattled up an impressive 87-1 before the rain finally ended play after 17 overs, Saad Ashraf with 41 and James Gamble 26 not out.

Now Papplewick face a trip this Saturday to Premier league newcomers Notts & Arnold Amateur and Trevor-Jones said: “It is a really good opportunity to get back to winning ways and it's an important game for us.

“But like a few of the other teams in the lower part of the table they have shown they are capable of beating teams higher up so we have to treat them with full respect and just stick to our process really.

“That's what we've been trying to do. You can't always fault the process if the outcome doesn't go your way.”