ROYAL Wootton Bassett captain Sam Lawro refused to blame the damp conditions as his side’s winless start to the new WEPL Wiltshire season extended to a seventh game on Saturday following a seven-wicket defeat at home to Calne.

The latest round of fixtures was the worst to be affected by the weather so far this summer, with rain hampering the hopes of a host of sides.

In nine scheduled matches to take place across the county in Premier One, Premier Two Glos/Wilts and WEPL Wiltshire at the weekend, four saw no action at all.

One of those included the WEPL Wiltshire derby between Swindon and Purton at the County Ground, which was abandoned without a ball being bowled and meant both teams had to make do with six points.

Bassett’s clash at home to Calne in the same division was also interrupted by the rain at one stage, although both teams were able to complete their innings.

Skipper Lawro may well have wished the weather had more of an impact, though, as Bassett’s bid to claim a first win of the season came up short once again.

After being asked to bat first upon losing the toss, the home side were in trouble early on as opener Yasir Irshad and number three Darren Beasant both fell without scoring.

Akash Sharma (35) and Charanveer Chahal (31) came together to offer some resistance and got their side to 86-3 at one stage, but skipper Lawro was the only other batsman to reach double figures as Bassett collapsed to 114 all out.

James Sutton shone with the ball for Calne, taking excellent figures of 4-16.

Bassett made a couple of early breakthroughs after tea, but the Calne run chase was relatively trouble-free overall as Sean Parker (52no) and skipper Sean Adams (40) guided them to a winning 119-3 inside 23 overs.

Lawro says his side can only point the finger at themselves for their latest loss instead of the weather, stating that conditions on the day were actually fairly reasonable.

“It was hard work getting the pitch ready because of the weather, but the weather on Saturday wasn’t actually too bad – I think we only went off for rain once,” said Lawro.

“If anyone saw the ground on Friday morning, they’d have thought there was no chance of playing, but with a lot of hard work, we managed to get a strip together and get the game on.

“There are no excuses from us about the result and I don’t think we can blame the weather.

“Calne won the toss and put us in. We were in a good position at around 90-3 with 30 overs to go, but then we just collapsed and did not play intelligently enough considering the conditions.

“We threw it away in the second half of our innings, although we had a really good go at it with the ball in the second innings.

“All the lads were up for it in the field and we we had Calne at about 40-3 at one stage so were bang in the game, but Sean Parker came in and played really well and got them over the line.

“We gave it our all but just came up a bit short.”

Marshfield continue to top the table after maintaining their 100 per cent record with a seven-wicket win at Warminster.

Devizes earned an eight-wicket success at home to Potterne 2nd, while Westbury & District won by 57 runs via DLS at Hinton Charterhouse.