PURTON’S disappointing run of form continued on Saturday as they suffered a fifth defeat in their last six matches when they went down by 49 runs at home to fellow mid-table side Marshfield.

Aaron Lee’s men started the season in promising fashion by picking up two wins from the first three Wiltshire Division fixtures, but have won just once since then and are sixth as the campaign reaches its midway point.

Marshfield won the toss and batted and although Purton dismissed six of the visiting batsmen for single figure scores, the attack was not backed up in the field.

Three catches went down, including one off James Williams who went on to punish the home side for the error as he bludgeoned 104 off 74 balls before finally being removed by Adam Woolford (2-28).

Williams’ century was the backbone of the Marshfield innings and, backed up by Calum Burnstone (45) and William Pascall (39), helped his team declare on 250-9 in the 43rd over.

Skipper Lee was the pick of the Purton attack with 3-41, while Imran Ashraf returned figures of 2-45.

“Purton is notoriously a batting paradise and it was definitely that on Saturday but that’s not to say that if you don’t bowl well you won’t get your rewards, it’s just that our fielding was dreadful,” said Lee.

“There were three dropped catches, and I include myself in that as I put one down, and we were just sloppy in general.

“Williams was dropped early and went on to make a century, so if we’d taken that it turns the game on its head. You can’t say that mistake cost us the game as matches unfold in different ways but you never know.”

Purton’s reply was a stop-start affair as they could only finish on 201-9 by the end of their 50 overs.

Tom Bowler and Santhosh Iyengar both made 33, Woolford scored 29, Lee finished unbeaten on 28 and Sam Shelford chipped in with 22.

Pascall led the bowling effort with 3-34, while Matt Cox claimed 2-25.

Lee added: “I was quite confident we could chase 250 but we just needed that one person to go on and make a score, but we didn’t have that whereas they did. A lot of people got in and then got out, you can’t win games if you are only getting starts.”