LECHLADE suffered an agonising three-wicket defeat on their trip to Chard as they were beaten in the final over of the game.

Visiting skipper Joe Breet won the toss and elected to bat, where his side were dismissed for 205.

Lechlade made a sterling attempt to defend that total, with Benny Ellis (2-22) and Freddie Martin (2-28) leading the charge with the ball but their efforts were ultimately in vain as Chard got home with four balls to spare.

“It was a game we probably should have won,” said Breet. “When you are under pressure it’s easier to make mistakes and we didn’t cope with that pressure well enough on Saturday.

“We thought 205 was probably a little bit short of a competitive total but we still made a pretty decent fist of it.

“Benny bowled really well and only went for 20-odd runs from his 10 overs, and Freddie put in a good effort as well.

“We had opportunities to win it but didn’t take them and that’s a bit frustrating.”

A disappointing batting performance was the catalyst for Lechlade’s defeat – their second in a row following last week’s loss at home to Thornbury.

Opener Miles Hammond was back in the pavilion without a run being scored but Breet (62) and Bradley Dial (85) then shared a stand of 113.

However, once those two were dismissed no other Lechalde batsmen was able to score more than 16.

Breet added: “It was nice to score some runs. From a personal perspective I was really pleased with the way I played.

“If you look at the rest of the scorecard no-one else got over 20, so that shows just how difficult it was to score runs.

“We were about 20 runs short of probably where we needed to be. If they had and we’d got those extra runs then I’m sure that it would have been enough.”