ELVASTON captain Nick Briars felt his side missed the chance to put more pressure on Sandiacre Town as they chased on a difficult wicket with variable bounce.

It had been a case of picking the best possible wicket after a lot of rain in the week and Briars admitted it was not ideal.

“It wasn't the best track. We hadn't managed to prepare the one we wanted, as we had to go with the driest one,” said Briars.

“We thought that 194 was about par on it and, at the start of Sandiacre's innings, it was looking OK.

“Then, whatever happened, it was if we flipped a switch and stopped playing. We dropped a couple of easy catches, which gets a team down a bit, and what should have been quite a close game turned into a bit of a canter for Sandiacre.”

This latest defeat leaves Elvaston well short of getting out of the bottom two in the Beechwood Derbyshire Premier League and Briars knows they now need to find the equivalent of title-chasing form.

“If definitely doesn't get any easier. We're in the middle of a tough spell and we haven't made up any ground on anybody,” he said.

“I still think we need to win four of the last eight of our games to have a chance of staying up, which is what first, second and third in the league are doing, and it will be a tough ask.”

There were some positives to be drawn from the game, with aggressive knocks of 56 each from Brett Crichton and Ian Hunter, who also bowled well with no reward at the start of Sandiacre's innings.

Crichton, in particular, laid into the bowling from the first ball he faced.

“That's the way Brett plays and it can be very effective,” said Briars.

“There's a lot of risk involved but he does score very quickly. He changed a sticky start into a situation where we were scoring quickly.

“We've been lucky this year to get a lot of games from Ian Hunter, who's fitted in well with the lads and been very good for us. He batted well but he was unlucky with the ball.”