BROMSGROVE suffered a four-wicket defeat to Birmingham League Division One leaders Walsall.

Captain Mark Evenson won the toss and opted to bat first but were bowled out for 143 in 42 overs, with Edward Denham (3-25) and Paul Wicker (3-35) in good form with the ball.

Evenson (3-16) and James Ganderton (3-54) took the wickets but Walsall rallied from 81-5 as Alex McChristie (36no) and Steven Plant (21) bagged a flurry of runs as the Black Country side made 145-6 in reply.

Captain Evenson said: "This was a big game and you need some of the big decisions go your way and unfortunately three of our top four batsmen were all unlucky to be out.

"Jayden Levitt, Ryan Pedley and Alexei Kervezee were all victims of poor decisions by the umpires.

"After the game, Walsall's captain and the umpire even said that some decisions went against us.

"But saying that we should have at least batted out our overs and if we had done that we'd have scored 30 or 40 runs more and we'd have won the game."

Defeat saw Bromsgrove slipped to seventh in the table but are only 25 points behind table topping Walsall.

Bromsgrove will be without Newdick and Tom Hill but are set to draft in Tom Underhill from the seconds while veteran fast bowler and chairman Nick Husbands may also be brought back into the side.