BROMSGROVE suffered an agonising one wicket defeat to high-flying Smethwick in Birmingham League Division One.

The Boars won the toss and decided to bat first and made 246-8 in 55 overs.

It took a club record 150-run fifth wicket stand between opener batsmen Ashley Newfield (103) and Tom Hill, who struck a best ever 85 runs.

Mohammed Sheikh (4-49) and Naqaas Tahir (2-65) were Smethwich's wicket-takers.

Bromsgrove's bowlers though did well to whittle down the hosts down to 219-7.

Wickets continued to tumble and the game went down to the knife edge.

Smethwick had batsmen number 10 and 11 batsmen Navdeep Poonia and Warseem Shah.

The hosts needed two runs for a win but Bromsgrove needed just one wicket to seal a fine win but on the final ball Shah cracked two runs to deny the away side maximum points.

Captain Mark Evenson said: "It was a very good game of cricket and we were disappointed to lose.

"Smethwick have some good players and on another day we'd have taken the last wicket.

"But we'll take the positives from the performance, Ashley Newfield and Tom Hill batted extremely well."

The Boars, who are eighth in the table, take on fellow mid-table side Himley at home on Saturday (noon start).

Evenson said: "Himley have good players like Wasim Jaffer and Tom Kohler-Cadmore, if he's not playing for Worcestershire, so we'll have to be on our toes."