Bishop's Stortford 76 all out lost to Langleybury 80-5 by 5 wkts

A DIRE display with the bat saw Bishop's Stortford lose ground in the race for the Herts Premier cricket league on Saturday.

They were skittled for just 76 by Langleybury who leap-frogged them in the table to stand in second place behind leaders Hoddesdon.

The visitors won the toss and put Stortford in. They removed five of the home batsmen for just 14 runs, largely thanks to the bowling of Paul O'Reilly and Javed Khan.

Skipper Steve Burrow fought back briefly with a steadfast 35 but with little support, his efforts were in vain.

The score was 72 for seven when Burrows was dismissed by O'Reilly and four runs later, the innings had come to a sad end.

O'Reilly finished with tremendous figures of seven for 44. He bowled 17 overs.

Stortford were never likely to get anything from the match, but there was a glimmer of hope when Dave Scholz and Graeme Sumner accounted for the Langleybury openers with only ten on the board.

Charlie Bannister also took three but the visitors' middle recovered and picked off the runs with five wickets to spare.

Stortford's only bit of good news on the day was that Hoddesdon had also lost and collected just six points. There are two games remaining and 12 points between the leaders and Stortford.

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