Radlett slipped to a second consecutive Herts League Premier Division defeat as they went down by 37 runs at home against local rivals West Herts, a result that strengthens the latter’s grip on fifth spot.

The Cobden Hill outfit started brightly though and had the visitors in all sorts of trouble at 46-4 as captain Kabir Toor (4-43), Anthony Hill (2-28) and Randeep Sanghera (1-28) all combined to do the early damage.

West Herts rebuilt things as the irrepressible William Jones crashed 89 to ensure his side responded following an inauspicious start.

Support arrived thanks to 28 from Matthew Smith and 22 from Craig Sanders but both fell as Toor continued to impress with the ball.

Thanks to late runs in the form of 20 from Avinash Mane, West Herts took their tally to 234-7 from their 60 overs as the game remained delicately poised.

The home side responded from a rocky opening of their own that saw them lose both openers – Christopher Arul (0) and Fraser Crawford (16) – cheaply, as Toor, the Premier Division’s leading run scorer with 770 runs, and Joe Cooke (57) put on a stand of 91.

Toor eventually made an excellent 86 of his own to continue his fine individual season but he was somewhat upstaged by another of the division’s star men, Jones, as the Stags seamer returned with a vengeance with a blistering spell of 6-35 to decimate the Radlett card.

Having once looked primed for victory at 150-3, Radlett missed the chance to make amends for their previous week’s defeat to Potters Bar and collapsed to 197 all out.