Shropshire's rally only enough for a draw

Randhawa claimed four second-innings wickets to give them a sniff of victory on the final day of their Unicorns Western Division clash at Eastnor.

But Herefordshire held on for a draw, closing the game on 191-7. For a while, the hosts looked capable of chasing down the 267 they needed for victory as they progressed to 147-3.

But they lost 4-29 in the overs that followed before dropping anchor and holding on for a battling draw. Randhawa ended with 4-68 for Shropshire, while Matt Higginbottom claimed 2-46.

And coach Karl Krikken was left ruing a poor second-day display which denied his side a second straight victory.

He said: "Overall we're playing good cricket. We beat Cheshire in two days and we won two of the three days in this game, but it was the second day that cost us.

"When you have a side 60-4 overnight after posting 360 you don't expect them to go past your total but that's what happened and, ultimately, it's ended up costing us the win.

"But on day three we were back on it, we bowled good lines and lengths and we caused them problems, so to have them seven down at the end was a good effort.

"We thought 267 was a fair enough total for them to chase and in the end we felt we were unlucky not to win, but it was a difficult wicket to get people out on if they were just blocking."

Shropshire had started the final day 135-3 in their second innings with captain James Ralph (31 not out) and opener Steve Leach (72 not out) at the crease.

That was after they had trailed by 15 runs on first innings with Herefordshire posting 382-9 in their first innings, including an unbeaten 227 from Ed Pollock.

Leach went on to make 91 and Ralph 33 in Shropshire's second-innings total of 281.