HALESOWEN CC suffered their third defeat of the Birmingham League Division Two season as they fell short against Oswestry.

An outstanding contribution came from Oswestry’s Warrick Fynn, who batted throughout the Shropshire outfit’s innings of 237 for five from 50 overs.

He faced 145 balls and finished on 124 not out in a 20-run victory as Halesowen were all out for 217 with eight balls remaining of their reply.

Wes Griffiths hit 56 but it was only a ninth wicket partnership of 51 between Hassan Akram (30) and Eddie Rhodes (28) that kept the visitors in the game. Oswestry’s best bowler was Glamorgan seamer Roman Walker, fresh from his cameo role on television, in midweek, with 3-29.

The second and thirds faired no better in their games against Himley and Stourport respectively.

With a number of players either injured or unavailable both teams were under strength for their league matches but also took the opportunity to give some youngsters a chance at this early stage in the season.

After losing the toss on a juicy surface Halesowen batted first but were undone by former Hales seamer Matt Jeavons (5-41) who bowled with pace and accuracy to demolish the Halesowen early order. With a long tail the team were bundled out for just 132 which Himley knocked with some ease to win by 7 wickets. Hales lie 3rd in Division 2 of the Worcestershire County League.

The very young third team were also defeated by 210 runs in a drubbing at Stourport. After posting 275-2 Stourport knocked over Hales for 61 leaving the 3rd XI rooted at the bottom of the division with much work to do. The 4ths were abandoned without a ball bowled due to the weeks rains.

Captain Alexei Kervezee said: "We can hide behind player availability and all sorts of other things or we can do something about it. Every club has its issue.

"On Saturday, the first team's top four didn’t manage to set a base for the innings and its happening weekly plus we dropped catches. Its as simple as that. We will need to adjust the batting order next week for the Himley game as a fair few players have had decent opportunities now and whichever way you look at it its not working for them nor the team.

"Again we fought hard at key stages of the game with the ball and Hassan Akram and Musharraf Shahzad have improved week on week. Looking across the club, plenty of people are getting opportunities but not quite enough are taking them at the moment. It’s a mindset we had in 2018 and its not clicked yet for 2019. It will."

Hales welcome Himley to Seth Somers Park on Saturday (noon start).

The seconds go to Lye, the thirds welcome Harborne to Earls High and the fourths visit Hallow.