OLD Hill face a real battle to beat the drop after they lost out by four wickets to Attock in Birmingham League Division One last Saturday.

The Hill failed to defend a formidable total of 253-5 as the Moseley-based side knocked off the runs with consummate ease to reach 254-6 with nine balls to spare.

Dismayed Old Hill skipper Danny Cox said: “There were no excuses, we just didn’t bowl well enough.

“Instead of keeping it tight early on in the reply, we went for 20 runs off the first over and made it easy for them.”

Old Hill now find themselves 41 points adrift of safety and third-from-bottom Bromsgrove as Cox confirmed: “Effectively we’re now three wins away, because Bromsgrove are sure to pick up some points, even if they lose.

“But we can still get out of this situation — we’ve done it before, but everyone needs to start playing to their potential.

“The most annoying thing is that we actually got a decent total to defend and usually, we’ve bowled quite well this season, but this time, it was the bowling that let us down.”

Monil Patel had plundered 121 with the bat and found support from Cox, who contributed 46, while Hamza Ahmed added another 36.

But Hill proved powerless to stop Attock’s Mohammed Qamar Khan, who cracked 113 not out in reply to clinch victory.

Old Hill travel to Wellington on Saturday and make one change to their line-up, Staffordshire Under-17 seamer Rav Thalal coming in at the expense of Ashfak Hussain.