Twickenham 3's slipped into the relegation places with an agonising 1 wicket defeat to local rivals Teddington at a baking St Mary's.

On winning the toss,skipper Paul Johnson had no hesitation in taking first hit on the bone hard track.

Twickenham's poor batting form started to creep through from the start,as Colin Blunden,Dhilraj and Ben Parer were all out cheaply to loose shots,leaving the T's shaky at 45 for 3.

The fact they'd got to 45 was mainly down to the belligerent strokeplay of Anurag Dayal,and along with Steve Watts they took the score to 80,before Dayal played a wild shot and was caught at slip 4 short of his half century.

Johnson then joined Watts,and they decided to slow the game down,eating up the overs,but picking off the bad balls as well.

The score moved along to 135,before Johnson edged to slip for 34.

Hard hitting cameos from Ubale and Jeremy Keates pushed the score beyond 200,and with Watts now passed 50,a score in the region of 250 looked a possibility.

Unfortunately,the tail didn't wag,and when Rohan Kulkarni was last man (run) out,Twickenham had reached a slightly under par 237.

Watts,though,had batted superbly,and finished on a richly deserved 74 not out.

After tea,Twickenham's other 'fraility',the new ball penetration (or lack of it!) was up to it's old tricks,as a mixture of loose balls,no balls,and hard hitting, saw Teddington race to 93 before Ben Parer clean bowled Ahmed for 44. Prior to that,17 wicketless overs had been bowled by Rohan Kulkarni,Pete Burke and Jeremy Keates.

Anurag Dayal entered the attack,and a long with Parer started to turn the game around for the T's,as the ball started to misbehave on the breaking pitch.

Some good catches,from Blunden and Keates coupled with accurate bowling saw wickets fall reguarly,and when opener Sangera was 7th out, clean bowled by Dayal for 58,Twickenham sensed a much needed win.

They reckoned without big opening bowler Javed though,who worked out that the only way to get Teddington home was to take charge and open his shoulders.

2 late wickets for Ubale,who'd replaced Parer (3 for 51 from 10 overs) set up a tense finale,the equation being 6 to win off the last over with the T's needing just 1 wicket.

Javed would finish the hero though,dispatching Dayal's first ball onto the hockey pitch for a match winning maximum leaving the T's to face another demoralising defeat.

Dayal finished the pick of the Twickenham bowlers with 4 for 50 off 15.1 overs.

So,we go to Hampstead next week knowing that a big improvement is needed,and soon,otherwise a hard 2nd half of the season awaits.....