OMBERSLEY suffered a batting disaster after they appeared to have victory in the bag against West Bromwich Dartmouth.

Having kept Dartmouth to 138-9 off 43 overs, Ombersley then collapsed to just 63 all out in reply.

At one stage, Ombersley were reduced to 15-5, despite the fact they included Worcestershire’s Brett D’Oliveira and Hampshire’s Gareth Andrew in their side.

Ultimately, Ombersley lost out by 75 runs on the Duckworth-Lewis system and slip to fourth from bottom in the Birmingham League Premier Division.

But Ombersley still have a 51-point cushion over second-bottom Walmley, with lowly Leamington all but doomed to the drop on 77 points.

Skipper Arti Fiaz admitted: “The result is symptomatic of our season. We just seem to go through a period in each game where we suffer a bad 30 to 45 minutes.

“We did exactly the same against Shrewsbury a couple of weeks ago when going well on 115-2 and then found ourselves on 125-8.

“It was just a combination of everything. A few good balls, one or two loose shots and some strange decisions. But we’ll take it in our stride and go again this week when we travel to top-of-the-table Berkswell.

“We’re the only side to have beaten Berkswell this season, so I’m sure they’ll want to put that right.

“Now that we’re back to the win-lose format, I think we have no other option than to go for it and that’s what we’ll do.

Fiaz hopes to have both county stars D’Oliveira andAndrew available for the trip to Berkswell along with England Under-19 player Josh Dell.