WILTSHIRE slipped to a heavy home defeat at the hands of Berkshire in their second Unicorns Championship Western Division match of the summer.

Team manager Neil Shardlow pinpointed a lacklustre batting performance for their failure, with no Wiltshire batsman registering a half-century across the three days as they went down by 176 runs at Corsham.

“The wicket was wearing and turning a bit by the end but we just didn’t bat as well as we would have liked,” said Shardlow.

“It was a bit of an off-day because two weeks ago, we posted two big scores. Hopefully it’s a one-off for us as we have batted pretty well in the last six weeks.

“There’s no complaints from us. Berkshire were by far and away the better team and we struggled to cope with their bowling. We were second best on this occasion.”

Berkshire won the toss at Station Road on Sunday and chose to bat but were soon in trouble at 11-3, thanks largely to the efforts of Tahir Afridi and debutant Andy Carroll.

Aided by some dropped catches, they recovered to 273 all out, with James Morris scoring 80 and Chris Peploe 59.

For Wiltshire, Afridi took 4-52, Ed Young 3-47 and Joe King 2-56, while they had reached 107-4 in reply by the close.

“We got into a very good position early on but just didn’t get a grip on the game then,” added Shardlow.

“We had a couple of opportunities and put a couple of chances down and if we had taken the bull by the horns then in the first innings, I think we would have bowled them out for less than 200.”

The first hour of the second day saw Berkshire take control as Wiltshire collapsed in dramatic fashion to 150 all out, giving Berkshire a first innings lead of 123.

Captain Michael Coles top-scored with 39, while Tom Nugent took 5-52 and Matt Carter 4-38 for Berkshire.

The visitors then increased their lead with a quick opening partnership of 69 before they lost nine wickets for 108 runs.

Then they recovered with a 10th wicket partnership of 82, led by Nugent (70*), before they were finally all out for 259, with Young taking 6-87.

That left Wiltshire 20 overs and all of Tuesday to score 383 but their efforts again crumbled as they were skittled for 206, Mike Reynolds top-scoring on 37 while a last-wicket stand of 60 between man-of-the-match Carroll (33) and Joe King (23*) provided some entertainment, with Berkshire’s Peploe taking 4-66.

Sharlow added: “We clawed ourselves back into the game and had them at 177-9, which in effect was 300.

“If you had said to me on the first morning having lost the toss that the opposition would set us 300 on the final day to win, then I would have thought it would be a score we could achieve.

“Unfortunately, we just didn’t play that well and there were areas of our game we weren’t happy with.

“We’ve just got to go away and regroup now and get ready for the away game down in Cornwall in a couple of weeks’ time.”