TOPCROFT welcomed Acle to Topcroft Sports Field, and were again defeated after making a promising start, gaining only four points from the Alliance Premier Division game.

TOPCROFT welcomed Acle to Topcroft Sports Field, and were again defeated after making a promising start, gaining only four points from the Alliance Premier Division game.

Topcroft skipper Goodfellow won the toss and elected to bowl. A Todd and I Todd got Topcroft off to an ideal start with some tight bowling before I Todd bowled Porter for eight before having overseas player Murray caught behind by Taylor two balls later to leave Acle 12 for two.

Nobbs and Huggins set about rebuilding the Acle innings against the tight Topcroft bowling. Du Plessis and Marshall continued to make runs hard to come by.

Nobbs and Huggins, after both being dropped at some stage in their innings, took the score to 132 before Du Plessis bowled Nobbs for 56.

Huggins was the next wicket to fall, caught by Taylor off A Todd for 51, Acle were 139-4 with nine overs remaining.

A Todd soon removed P Munford, caught at point by Batty for four and A Munford soon followed, run out by some clever cricket from Marshall and I Todd.

This brought in danger man Newman who looked to increase the Acle total with some lusty blows. The score moved on to 193, before I Todd (3-52) bowled Wilson for 16.

A Todd then claimed the wickets of Newman and Roberts in successive balls to finish with impressive figures of 4-43 as Acle finished their innings on 198-9.

Topcroft got off to a good start in search of the 199 runs required for victory with new opening partnership of Batty and Goodfellow batting sensibly to put on 42 before Goodfellow was adjudged lbw for 22.

Holmes joined Batty and took the score to 52, before disaster struck as Topcroft lost two wickets in two balls, both to the same dismissal of run out, with both run-outs effected by the same fielder, Murray. Holmes was the first to fall, followed by Batty for 25.

Du Plessis was joined by Rostron but Rostron soon fell and Topcroft were in big trouble at 64-4.

I Todd looked to build a partnership with Du Plessis, but Du Plessis was unfortunate to block a ball onto his pads only for it to roll back on to his stumps, Topcroft 75-5.

Mattocks was the next wicket to fall, run out in an identical fashion to the previous two Topcroft batsmen, 85-6.

Davey and Todd took the score past the 100 mark before Davey was caught off the spinner Murray and Acle were looking to finish off the Topcroft tail to secure victory.

Todd was the next wicket to fall, caught at slip off Newman for a well-made 25.

A Todd was next wicket, caught behind off Newman, leaving Topcroft 111-9 with 10 overs remaining.

Marshall and Taylor looked to play out the rest of the overs to gain a draw for Topcroft, but Marshall was lbw for 10 to Nudd to wrap up the Topcroft innings on 122.

Topcroft can again take pride in their bowling performance, but know that they soon need to pick up some points if they are to not be relying on other results to stay in the Premier Division.

This week the Tigers travel to Brooke.