PURTON captain Elliot Hill has called on his side to finish team’s off after they fell to a 38-run defeat to Wiltshire Division leaders Great Bedwyn.

Purton restricted their hosts to 242-9, despite Great Bedwyn at one stage being 192-1.

Purton were looking in good shape at 152-4, with Akki Gomel striking 84 from 87 balls.

However, a lower order collapse saw the visitors snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

“It is good that we are getting ourselves into these winning positions, but it is so frustrating that we are not getting across the line,” Hill said.

“It happened on Saturday, we snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Both sides were in dominant positions during the game, but we let ours slip which is frustrating.”

Great Bedwyn’s innings was built on their top order success with Chris Blundy and John Palmer putting on 72 for the opening wicket, before Palmer was joined by his brother Robert and they put on 120 for the second.

“They are both very good players and it is vitally important that you get them early,” Hill added. “They attacked the bad balls and gave very few chances.

“We were much improved with in the field, but there were a couple of chances that went down, one which I was guilty of.

“There are still areas of the game that we need to improve upon if we are to start winning games consistently.”

Hill was pleased to see Gomel in the runs as the India under 19s international has been going through a bit of lean patch of late.

“Akki has been impressive with the ball since he has been with us,” Hill said. “But he had lost a bit of confidence with the bat.

“He has been put in the hard yards and he is a quality batsman and he is hungry for the team to do well.

“You get some overseas players who come in and don’t really care, but Akki does and he is as frustrated as the rest of us at 7pm on Saturday if we have been on the wrong end of a result.”