HADLEIGH & Thundersley suffered a narrow one wicket defeat against Hutton following a exciting Essex League Premier Division clash at John Burrows.

Hadleigh were put into bat after losing the toss and were bowled out for 191.

Sam Handley’s side lost wickets regularly throughout the innings but Oliver Smith caught the eye scoring an impressive 91 not out.

Adam Dobson with 16 was the second highest scoring but Hadleigh still made a real fist of trying to win the game.

Hadleigh bowled well right from the start of the Hutton innings with Ethan Rogers taking 3/16 from his six overs while Adam Dobson (3/43) and Louis Poynter (2/21) also made strong contributions.

Their efforts restricted Hutton to 64/6 before a mid-innings revival saw the visitors come out on top.

Viraj Gandhi, who batted at number eight, top scored with 41 while Thomas Debenham scored an important 36 not out to condemn Hadleigh to defeat.

The setback saw Hadleigh drop to ninth in the 10 team table with 36 points from their first five games of the season.

Hadleigh are already 17 points from safety and will be eager to get back to winning ways when they face what appears to be a crunch clash at Chingford this weekend.

Chingford are currently the only team below Hadleigh in the standings and have lost all five of their matches so far.

As a result, Chingford have just 17 points to their name at this early stage of the campaign and will therefore also be eager to kick-start their stuttering season on Saturday.