SLOUGH skipper Bobby Sher has admitted that rival club Burnham played “slightly better” in their two-wicket defeat on Saturday.

Sher believes the derby came down to fine margins which did not fall for his side.

“It’s 1-1 for the season now after we thrashed Burnham in the T20 competition, but this one is more important,” he told the Observer. “We will have another chance in eight or nine weeks and I will be looking forward to it, but it was a good game on Saturday.

“Both teams played well and it was just unfortunate for us that Burnham played slightly better than we did on the day.

“If one or two things had gone our way then maybe we could’ve come away with a win but that didn’t happen.

“It’s just like last year when the fine margins went out way and we came away with a narrow win.”

Having lost the toss, Slough were put into bat and made 264-4 from their allotted 50 overs, with Fahim Qureshi (72), Shaan Khan (50) and Lloyd Paternott (47) the leading batsman.

Muhammad Haroon was the pick of the Burnham bowlers with his figures of 2-63, while the other wickets fell to Aftab Khan (1-24) and Shabaaz Alam (1-48).

Slough Observer:

PHOTO: New overseas player Zohaib Ahmed took 1-43 from his eight overs for Slough on Saturday.

The home team closed on 266-8 from 49.1 overs for the win thanks to Khan (53), Harveer Gandam (50) and Karan Kumar (47).

Sher (2-40) and Ali Akbar Raja (2-50) took two wickets apiece in defence of the total.

The Slough skipper commented: “In hindsight maybe we could’ve scored 20-30 more runs. That said we should have been able to defend the total but our bowling and fielding wasn’t good enough.

“It was good for the guys to get a bat after we were rained off last week.

“It was good for Shaan to spend time in the middle, Fahim and Lloyd scored good runs as did our overseas Zohaib Ahmed (44*), so we now know he can bat.

"We just let ourselves down with some ill-disciplined bowling. Maybe that was to do with fasting and coming on at time tea time, maybe not.”

The defeat means Slough fall to eighth position in Home Counties Division One ahead of the trip to Tring Park this Saturday.

Sher said: “Tring are bottom and we’re third bottom so we need to pull our fingers out though we have had one game washed out.

Slough Observer:

PHOTO: Ikhlaq Nawz claimed 1-29 from his six overs for Slough in defeat to Burnham.

“Both teams have a lot to do so the boys will need to be up for it and we need a win.

“You need a bit of luck in 50-over cricket or you could be 5-10 per-cent down and lose.

“That’s where we were last weekend but there are plenty of positives.

“We managed to score runs but it was unfortunate that we couldn’t back that up with our bowling.

"I'm not looking to make any changes. Hopefully we will have the same team available and the players are performing well at the moment. We just need to turn that into a win on Saturday."

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