SWINDON batsman Liam Tucker bemoaned a below-par batting display as they came unstuck against Burbage & Easton Royal, slipping to an eight-wicket defeat.

Andrew Staff’s side have been in good form of late, with six wins from the previous eight games hauling them into the promotion reckoning.

However, they were far from their best on the road on Saturday and only three batsmen made double figures as Swindon were skittled out for just 151 after electing to bat.

The visitors got off to a nightmare start, with opening pair Marc Williamson (1) and Matt Drakeley (0) and number four Alex Kill (0) all out cheaply to leave Swindon in disarray at 7-3.

Jonathan Sore (43), Dean Williamson (25) and Tucker (49*) tried to lead a fightback but for Swindon any additional help from the lower order was not forthcoming.

“Saturday was a big disappointment, we just didn’t play well enough,” said former captain Tucker.

“We lost three early wickets, which is never good when you go away from home. All three were lbw, which the guys will be disappointed with, and we never really recovered from that.

“Burbage played well and bowled good areas but we just didn’t have enough people bat well.

“We did manage a bit of a recovery and at some points we were looking at pushing towards a score of maybe 180 to 200, but that was probably the most that we could have managed.

“It’s always going to be tough to build a decent score when you only have three batsmen who make double figures.”

Swindon were always going to be up against it when they got their hands on the ball and Burbage had 38 on the board before Tom Codling (1-23) removed David Cope.

However, it continued to be plain sailing for the home side and Jonathan Chandler (68*) and Sourish Mukherjee (33*) saw them to victory with only one other wicket going down.

Tucker added: “With only 150 on the board it was always going to be a difficult score for us to defend.

“It was a bit of a thankless task for the bowlers, really.

“Guys like Matt Kidd, Conor Cleary and Tom Codling at the head of the attack bowled well and everyone put in a good effort but it was the below-par batting in the first innings that was to blame for the defeat rather than anything else.”