Worksop left looking over their shoulders after defeat by Clumber Park

Worksop suffered an unexpected six wicket home defeat to mid-table Clumber Park on Saturday to leave them looking over their shoulders in the race for promotion to the Bassetlaw & District Championship division.
Harry Taylor - top-scored for Worksop against Clumber Park.Harry Taylor - top-scored for Worksop against Clumber Park.
Harry Taylor - top-scored for Worksop against Clumber Park.

“I think the top five will go up and we are still fourth, though Retford have a couple of games in hand and they are not far behind us,” said captain Harry Taylor.

“So it will be a case of making sure we win our coming games and making sure we beat them when we play them.”

Having lost the toss and been put in on Saturday, Worksop found themselves in big trouble at 19-4 before Taylor, with 41, and Rob Willis, with 25, showed some resistance.

But they were all out for 101 in 31 overs with Mark Dean claiming figures of 4-16.

Clumber Park then reached 102-4 in 30.1 overs with 26 not out for Ben Perkins, 24 for Jamie Davies and 23 for David Taylor.

“We lost a couple of wickets early on with a couple of bad shots played,” said Taylor.

“It put us on the back foot straight away.

“We had to try to rebuild to get a score we could defend but were unfortunately unable to do so.

“It was one of those days and one we can easily forget about and just look forward the next match - and do our best to put up a good total if we bat first.

“We tried to salvage something out of it and were unfortunate to get out when we did as we could have possibly pushed on perhaps and put up another 50-60 runs.

“That would have made the game very interesting as there were only 10 overs left when they knocked off our total.

“We ended up 50-60 runs short.”

Promotion rivals Milton CC, Notts, and Papplewick & Linby seconds above them both won.

So this Saturday's home clash with Mansfield CC has assumed greater importance for Worksop.

“Hopefully we should be able to come out of it with 20 points – I don't see why not,” said Taylor.

“We beat them at their place quite comfortably. Hopefully we can replicate that this weekend.

“We have only one player missing so we look very strong and there is absolutely no reason we can't get 20 points this weekend.”