Batting first was key to Havant defeat... Burridge suffer as well

Havant were skittled out for just 88 after being put into bat on a wet wicket.

He said: ‘No-one likes a game of cricket to be decided by the toss but that was the case in this instance.

‘It was all down to the amount of rain we had during the week.

‘It was pretty challenging for all the batsmen with the ball moving around.

‘The ball was doing a bit off the seam, popping on occasions and also at times taking chunks out of the pitch.

‘This doesn’t happen too often to us and it was just that the conditions were so unfavourable.’

Burridge suffered a similar problem.

They slipped to their first defeat of the season, losing by seven wickets at Basingstoke & North Hants.

Visiting captain Rick Ankers again felt losing the toss proved decisive in that match as well.

He also highlighted that it was a similar story in many of the other games in the league as teams had to struggle early on.

‘If you look at all the other premier division games it was the same everywhere,’ said the Burridge skipper.

‘Teams batting first struggled to score runs.

‘If we’d won the toss we would have bowled first and then it would have been a different story.

‘This is not to take anything away from our opponents who bowled well by putting the ball in good areas.

‘A couple of our batsmen dragged shots on and it didn’t help when I ran out our overseas player who was going well.’

Batting first it looked bleak for the visitors when they slumped to 85 for eight.

Hilio De Abreu (23) did well and late runs from Dan Stancliffe (16), Sullivan White (14 not out) and Nic McMurray (14) took the visitors to 112 all out.

Richard Lock took two wickets for 37 but the game was lost by then.

Ankers added: ‘It is not a result we will get too animated about.

‘We just got on the wrong end of a vital toss.

‘Up until now we have played some outstanding cricket and no team is going to win every game.

‘We have got a good well-balanced team.

‘Our overseas player is a superstar and Rich Lock has been a great acquisition.

‘Also 17-year-old Ollie Southon is a great prospect.’