“WE LET them off the hook and it’s a big wake-up call” was skipper Will Sparrow’s honest appraisal of Ludlow & South Shropshire’s disappointing defeat at Frankton.

The visitors had their hosts 40-7 having lost the toss, but Jordan Perry’s 79 steered them to 174.

However, Perry was dropped in single figures off the impressive Matt Kennedy (6-35) and it proved a game-changing moment.

Ludlow were then dismissed for 136 and the skipper admitted they never really looked like getting up to their target.

Sparrow said: “It’s as well as Matt has bowled this season but we haven’t backed him up in the field.

“To have them 40-7 and let it slip is massively disappointing. We need to get back to winning ways as quickly as possible if we want to finish in the top three and that is the aim.

“They should never have got 174. If we’d won the toss we would have batted, it was clearly a used pitch with variable bounce and it got worse in the second innings.

“The momentum was then with them and they took six or seven wickets with the new ball without us realising what was happening.

“I can’t really blame the batters, Luke Miles (27) got hit on the head, I got one which shot off a length then the next ball shot low and bowled me and it was the same for a couple of the other lads.

“Maybe we switched off when they were 40-7 and it’s a big wake-up call for us.

“We have some big games to come and it’s not going to be easy to finish in the top three. We play Sentinel (top) and Wem (third) and they have already beaten us and we don’t want to lose to them twice. We want to beat them and show what we are capable of.

“It’s important we don’t get into a rut like we did in June when we lost two or three games on the trot, we haven’t lost since then and hopefully this is just a temporary blip.

“We have Bomere Heath on Saturday and should have a strong side out for that.”

In fact Ludlow did well to get themselves up to 133 having been 48-7 with Miles top-scoring with 27 before his unfortunate dismissal.

“If we had finished the job and been chasing 80 or 90 we would have scrambled over the line no matter how bad the pitch was,” said Sparrow. “But the dropped catch in Matt’s last over has cost us.”

Meanwhile Ludlow 2nd posted only 134 as they lost at home to Frankton 2nd.

Chris Ammonds made 60 for Ludlow but Archie Dickin's unbeaten 44 saw the home side to victory by four wickets.