WINLESS Steeple Langford seconds slumped to a seventh straight defeat when Hythe and Dibden seconds visited on Saturday.

The struggling side, wedged just one place from the basement, remain seeking their first win of the campaign after losing out by 45 runs.

A wicket at the end of the 12th over and another at the start of the 13th calmed the Langford nerves and, with the score at 86 for 2 at the halfway drinks, the innings could have swayed either way.

As it was, a 120-run stand for the third wicket started to take things away from the Langford bowlers.

A flurry of late wickets resulted in a score of 243 for 7 at the end of the innings. Chris Miles (2 for 27) and Dave Haugh (2 for 35) bowled tidily at the end of the innings with the other three wickets shared between Raj Kumar, Nathan Hill and Tony Gipson.

Kumar and Adi Hughes looked just as accomplished as the Hythe openers had and scored quickly to keep ahead of the required run rate.

Kumar was first out for 20 followed quickly by Steve Emm and subsequently by Hughes for 32. The runs kept coming quickly but the wickets also kept falling.

Nathan Hill batted well for 51 and a number of other batsman got good starts (Harry Mould 19, Darren Harvey 14, Luke Emm 14, Chris Miles 15) but couldn’t quite push on when needing to do so. The innings finally ended in the 39th over with Langford all out for 198.

For the second week in a row, Steeple Langford firsts had a long away trip but this time it was much more productive by securing what turned out to be a comfortable five-wicket win at Liphook.