SLOUGH captain Bobby Sher admits that his side under-performed in the 58-run defeat to Aston Rowant at Upton Court Road on Saturday.

It is their second defeat in Division One of the Home Counties Premier Cricket League this season and leaves them in sixth position in the table.

Sher told the Observer: “I’ve no excuses, we just under-performed all-round as simple as that. It’s not one to look back on favourably from our point of view.

“We won the toss and put Aston Rowant into bat and after 10 overs we should have had four wickets but the ball dropped short of the slips and some lbw decisions didn’t go our way.

“Their captain, Joshua Smith, came out and batted well to get to 96 runs and they put on a decent score at 225-6, but we should have chased that down because there were no demons in the wicket.

“Aston Rowant bowled well up front and it was difficult to score runs, but we were comfortable.

“We then lost Conrad Louth (0), Shahid Yousaf (2) and myself (6) all within 10 balls and while that happened we were struggling and always up against it.

“Fahim Qureshi (71) batted well but after we lost him we seemed to fizzle out.

Slough Observer:

PHOTO: Fahim Qureshi top-scored for Slough with 71 runs in the defeat to Aston Rowant on Saturday.

“We were 50-odd runs short and had a terrible day at the office, but we were not too far away.”

He added: “We’ve got to work that little bit harder again and hopefully get some runs on the board.

“It is not easy because it’s hot and seven of our players are fasting, so there’s not much I can say to the guys.”

Slough travel to Oxford this Saturday (11am start) and Sher believes the switch to the longer format of cricket will better suit his side.

He explained: "Oxford are a decent side that have not had the rub of the green, but they could have beaten High Wycombe last weekend and have already beaten Henley. They've only lost one more match than us.

"It will be another tough match but we're into the longer format so hopefully we can perform better. To be honest, the longer format suits us because we don't play our best cricket in the 50/50 game.

"It allows are spinners to bowl for longer and our seamers as well if they want to."

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